D3\.6 


Columbia  ®ntt»er^ttp 


LIBRARY 


GIVEN   BY 

THOMAS  WRIGHT 

1932 


THE  DAWN  OF 
CHRISTIANITY 


THE   DAWN   OF 
CHRISTIANITY 


BY 

ALFRED  W.  MARTIN,  A.M.,  S.T.B. 

AUTHOR   OF 

"the    life   op   JE8D8   IN   THE    LIGHT   OF   THE    HIGHER    CRITICISM" 

"great    RELIGIOUS   TEACHERS    OF   THE    EAST" 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 

1914 


Gqpyrigh'a  ■  1914,  BY 

^  .  D.  a;e:pi,eton  .and.  company 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  Ethical  Culture  movement  is  characterized,  in 
part,  by  the  freedom  of  its  fellowship.  Occupying  a 
neutral  position  on  all  questions  pertaining  to  theology 
and  philosophy,  it  accords  its  lecturers  entire  freedom 
of  thought  and  of  speech,  at  the  same  time  leaving 
the  members  equally  free  to  accept  or  reject  the  plat- 
form utterances  of  leaders. 

In  the  light  of  this  cardinal  characteristic  of  the 
Ethical  movement,  it  will  be  understood  that  the  views 
expressed  in  this  book  commit  no  one  but  the  author, 
he  having  no  right,  as  one  of  the  leaders  of  an  Ethical 
Society,  to  speak  for  anyone  but  himself. 


INTRODUCTION 

This  course  of  lectures,  delivered  on  Sunday  even- 
ings in  the  Meeting  House  of  the  Society  for  Ethical 
Culture  during  the  winter  of  1914,  is  a  continuation 
of  the  series  given  In  the  preceding  year  and  subse- 
quently published  under  the  title,  "The  Life  of  Jesus 
in  the  Light  of  the  Higher  Criticism."  The  purpose 
of  this  sequel  Is  to  carry  the  story  of  the  origin  of 
Christianity  on  from  the  death  of  Jesus  to  the  birth 
of  the  new  religion,  noting  the  precise  part  played 
in  this  process  by  the  genius  of  Paul  and  the  unique 
contribution  made  by  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
in  supplementing  the  Chrlstology  of  the  Apostle  to 
the  Gentiles  with  an  account  of  the  historic  Jesus 
in  terms  they  could  understand.  The  first  two  lec- 
tures relate  to  preliminary  questions  touching  the 
formation  of  the  New  Testament  as  a  collection  of 
sacred  books  and  the  reliability  of  the  record  as  a 
source  of  information  on  the  development  of  religious 
thought  and  organization  during  the  period  under  con- 
sideration. We  shall  then  see  how,  after  the  cruci- 
fixion, the  bereaved  and  despondent  disciples  came  to 
themselves  and  under  the  inspiration  of  a  great  con- 
viction concerning  the  immortality  of  their  Master, 
rallied  in  Jerusalem  to  make  converts  to  that  convic- 


INTRODUCTION 

tion  and  await  the  return  of  Jesus  in  the  role  of 
Messiah.  We  shall  then  take  a  survey  of  the  hfe  and 
missionary  labors  of  this  primitive  community  of  dis- 
ciples and  converts  into  whose  midst  came  Paul  after  his 
religious  transformation  on  the  way  to  Damascus. 
How  this  quasi-apostle  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
the  heterodox  Judaism  represented  by  the  Jerusalem 
church  was  not  radical  enough,  and  how,  as  a  result 
of  his  controversy  with  the  brethren,  he  achieved  the 
advancement  of  their  religion  to  its  logical  and  neces- 
sary outcome  in  Christianity, — this  will  form  the  sub- 
ject-matter of  the  fifth  lecture  in  the  series. 

In  the  first  half  of  the  second  century  the  Christian 
Church  was  confronted  with  a  most  perplexing  diffi- 
culty. For  nearly  a  hundred  years  the  hope  had  been 
fervently  held  that  Jesus  would  return  from  Heaven 
to  usher  in  the  heavenly  kingdom.  The  church  in  all 
localities  and  in  all  its  undertakings  had  been  organ- 
ized and  maintained  on  the  basis  of  this  eschatology. 
But  now  that  the  great  expectation  had  failed  of  ful- 
filment after  a  century  of  prayerful  watching  and 
waiting,  the  problem  arose  of  meeting  the  disappoint- 
ment and  saving  the  newly-created  religion  from  the 
danger  of  dissolution.  The  existing  order  of  society, 
it  was  supposed,  would  soon  disappear  and  many  a 
belief  and  practice  had  been  instituted  on  the  basis  of 
that  assumption.  Now  that  it  seemed  to  be  ill-founded, 
the  problem  was  to  readjust  inherited  beliefs  and  prac- 
tices to  a  society  that  showed  no  signs  of  undergoing 
the  expected  miraculous  transformation.  The  solu- 
tion of  that  problem  introduces  us  to  Hermas,  whose 
"Shepherd"  furnishes  illustration  of  how  the  read- 


INTRODUCTION 

justment  was  eflFected,  and  to  this  absorbingly  inter- 
esting phase  of  the  dawn  of  Christianity  the  sixth 
lecture  will  be  devoted.  Then  will  follow,  in  the  two 
closing  lectures,  first,  a  discussion  of  the  place  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  in  early  Christian  literature  and,  sec- 
ond, the  unique  and  indispensable  service  rendered  by 
its  author  in  acquainting  Gentiles  educated  in  Paul's 
Christology,  but  knowing  little  or  nothing  of  the  his- 
toric Jesus,  with  the  story  of  his  life.  This  he  based 
on  the  biographies  of  Jewish  evangelists  (the  Synoptics), 
presenting  Jesus  in  terms  of  a  Greek  philosophical  con- 
cept long  familiar  to  thoughtful  Gentiles,  By  thus 
rounding  out  the  work  of  Paul,  adding  to  his  doctrine 
of  salvation  an  intelligible  account  of  the  person  of 
the  Savior,  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  achieved 
the  one  thing  needful  to  make  Christianity  a  complete 
religious  system,  one  of  the  great  religions  of  the 
world. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAOB 

I.    Where   Did   the   New   Testament   Come 

From? 1 

II.    The  Reliability  op  the  Record        .        .        27 

III.  From   the   Crucifixion  of  Jesus  to  the 

Conversion  of  Paul       ....        53 

IV.  The  Primitive  Community  in  Jerusalem  .        80 

V.    A  Crisis  in  the  Evolution  of   Christi- 
anity         109 

VI.    The  "Shepherd"  of  Hermas  or  Adapta- 
tion to  Religious  Environment   .        .      138 

VII.    The  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Synoptics    .      166 

VIII.    The    Primitive     Christian    Message    in 

Terms  of  Greek  Philosophy         .        .      191 
Summary 218 


THE  DAWN 
OF  CHRISTIANITY 


WHERE  DID  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  COME  FROM  ? 

The  New  Testament  is  not  a  book,  but  a 
collection  of  books.  To  speak  more  accurately 
still,  it  is  a  specially  selected  collection  or 
"canon"  of  scriptures.  The  word  "Testament" 
is  a  synonym  for  covenant,  or  agreement,  and  in 
Biblical  usage  refers  to  the  compact  made  by 
Yahweh  with  the  Hebrews,  through  Abraham, 
according  to  which  He  would  be  their  protector 
and  helper  if  they  would  worship  Him  and  obey 
His  commandments.  But  when  Paul  pro- 
claimed a  new  and  broader  covenant,  one  be- 
tween God  and  man,  and,  according  to  the 
apostle,  sealed  by  the  blood  of  Jesus,  it  became 
necessary  to  distinguish  the  later  from  the  older 
covenant.  For  this  purpose  the  terms  "Old  Tes- 
tament" and  "New  Testament"  were  used.  We 
see  the  distinctions  already  intimated  by  Paul 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

in  his  second  letter  to  the  converts  at  Corinth. 
There  he  applies  the  term  ''Old  Testament"  to 
the  books  that  testified  to  the  older  covenant, 
now  superseded,  indeed,  yet  held  in  reverent 
remembrance  and  regard.^  Hence  the  later 
documents,  testifying  to  the  new  covenant,  came 
to  be  called  the  New  Testament. 

The  word  "canon"  means  a  measuring-rule. 
Applied  to  sacred  books  it  indicates  those  that 
conformed  to  a  given  rule  or  standard  of  inspir- 
ation, those  in  which  the  will  of  God  was  re- 
vealed, or  those  worthy  to  be  selected  for  public 
reading  at  church  services.  And  when  a  book 
was  declared  to  have  conformed  to  such  a  stand- 
ard or  canon,  it  was  said  to  be  canonized.  Hence 
the  collection  of  books  thus  duly  accredited  by 
ecclesiastical  authority  constituted  the  New  Tes- 
tament canon.  The  first  known  use  of  the  word 
canon  in  connection  with  the  Bible  is  in  a  work 
by  Athanasius,  "Decrees  of  the  Synod  of 
Nicaea,"  published  in  350  a.d.,  in  which  the  term 
appears  in  relation  to  the  "Shepherd  of  Her- 
mas"  as  a  book  not  to  be  included  in  the  list 
of  sacred  books  that  may  be  read  at  church 
services  ("/^^  Sv  «k  tov  kovopos"). 

The  Hindus,  Persians,  Arabs  and  Assyrians 

»IICor.  3:  14. 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

had  the  idea  of  a  canon  of  scriptures,  but  no 
nation  ever  held  it  quite  so  strongly  as  did  the 
Jews,  because  no  other  stood  in  such  intense  and 
intimate  relation  to  deity,  no  other  possessed  a 
covenant  like  unto  theirs.  Hence  the  doctrine 
of  the  Synagogue,  from  the  beginning,  was  that 
all  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  had  their 
origin  in  Divine  inspiration.  And  both  the  canon 
and  the  theory  of  it  passed  over  into  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  At  first  its  only  sacred  book  was 
the  Old  Testament,  but  when  the  collection 
known  as  the  New  Testament  was  formed,  the 
distinction  between  the  Old  and  the  New  Testa- 
ment inevitably  obtained. 

Four  distinct  types  of  literature  characterize 
the  New  Testament  collection.  The  four  biog- 
raphies of  Jesus  are  followed  by  a  book  of  apos- 
tolic history  and  legend,  and  this,  in  turn,  by  let- 
ters, some  bearing  the  name  of  the  great  Apostle 
to  the  Gentiles  and  others  the  names  of  disciples 
of  Jesus  and  their  fellow-workers,  while  an 
apocalypse,  designated  "The  Revelation  of  St. 
John  the  Divine,"  brings  the  collection  to  a 
close.  All  these  writings  appeared  in  the  course 
of  the  century  extending  from  52  a.d.,  the 
probable  date  of  the  First  Epistle  to  the 
Thessalonians,  to  150  a.d.,  the  date  assigned 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

to  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter.  But  though 
all  these  constituent  parts  of  the  New 
Testament  had  been  written  by  the  middle  of 
the  second  century,  they  were  not  immediately 
gathered  into  a  single  authoritative  collection. 
All  had  a  pre-canonical  history,  the  details  of 
which  we  must,  for  the  most  part,  surmise.  In 
the  case  of  the  gospels,  for  example,  some  light 
is  thrown  on  their  acceptance  and  origin  by  two 
of  the  early  Christian  Fathers,  Justin  the 
Martyr  and  Papias.  Justin  is  our  earliest  wit- 
ness to  the  existence  of  the  gospels.  A  copious 
writer  he  was,  and  most  important  among  his 
extant  works  is  his  "Dialogue  with  Trypho  the 
Jew."  Here  we  find  numerous  quotations  from 
the  Old  Testament,  prefixed  with  the  phrase, 
"Thus  saith  the  Holy  Spirit,"  indicating  that  the 
book  is  for  him  an  inspired  and  sacred  author- 
ity. He  quotes  also  many  passages  from  other 
sources,  passages  that  we  meet  with  in  the  gos- 
pels. But  none  of  these  does  Justin  prefix  with 
"Thus  saith  the  Holy  Spirit" ;  he  simply  remarks 
that  they  are  quotations  from  "Recollections  of 
the  Apostles."  Only  once  does  he  attach  an 
apostolic  name  to  a  quotation,  and  then  he  refers 
it  to  the  "Recollections  of  Peter."  Justin,  more- 
over, quotes  verses  that  have  no  parallel  in  our 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

gospels  and  which  may  have  been  drawn  from 
gospels  long  since  lost,  proving  that  in  his  day, 
140  A.D.,  our  four  gospels  were  not  yet  re- 
garded as  separate  and  inspired  scriptures, 
i.  e.,  they  were  not  yet  canonized. 

Contemporary  with  Justin  lived  Papias, 
bishop  of  Hieropolis,  in  Phrygia.  He  was  the 
author  of  an  elaborate  work  on  "Expositions  of 
Sayings  of  the  Lord,"  Of  these  only  fragments 
remain,  preserved  by  the  first  Church  historian, 
Eusebius,  who  wrote  his  famous  ecclesiastical 
history  about  the  year  350.  Turning  to  these 
fragments  of  what  Papias  wrote,  we  find  first 
of  all  this  interesting  statement:  "Matthew 
wrote  the  words  of  the  Lord  in  the  Hebrew 
dialect  (the  Aramaic,  spoken  by  the  Jews),  and 
everyone  interpreted  them  as  he  was  able  (i.  e., 
translated  them  as  well  as  he  could)" — language 
which  intimates  that  Papias  treated  these  writ- 
ings as  uncanonized  literature.  And  he  adds 
that  to  him  oral  tradition  seemed  much  more 
valuable  than  the  written  tradition,  because  of 
the  variety  of  its  versions.  Papias,  we  may  be 
sure,  had  not  seen  this  Aramaic  work,  else  he 
would  have  mentioned  it.  Of  the  connection  be- 
tween these  Aramaic  "logia"  or  sayings  and  our 
Gospel  of  Matthew  we  know  nothing.    But  we 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

are  quite  certain  that  this  gospel,  as  we  have  it, 
is  not  an  apostolic  work.  Witness,  for  example, 
the  vague  expressions,  "their  cities,  their 
scribes,"  as  if  the  writer  in  no  way  belonged  to 
the  country;  witness,  also,  the  references  to  a 
state  of  ecclesiastical  life  and  doctrinal  thought 
only  developed  at  a  much  later  day  than  that  to 
which  Matthew  belonged.*  That  our  gospel 
embodies  these  Aramaic  "logia"  as  its  germ,  or 
original  nucleus,  is  generally  conceded,  and  it 
may  be  thai;  the  gospel  owes  its  name  to  the  pres- 
ence of  these  logia  within  it.  But  it  would  be 
hazardous  to  say  that  Matthew,  the  disciple, 
was  the  original  author  of  these  "logia."  The 
tradition  that  he  wrote  them  may  be  due  to  the 
idea  that  he,  as  a  publican,  had  literary  ability. 
It  was  believed  that  Matthew  had  a  clerkship 
in  the  custom  house  at  Capernaum.  But  there 
is  no  valid  evidence  for  the  belief  that  a  tax- 
gatherer,  an  agent  of  the  Roman  government, 
was  a  disciple  of  Jesus.  In  view  of  the  strong 
public  sentiment  against  publicans  as  a  class,  it 
would  have  been  most  imprudent  for  Jesus  to 
have  selected  one  of  them  for  a  disciple,  how- 
ever kindly  and  sympathetic  his  attitude  to  them 

»See,   10:38;  28:15,   19;  18:17,  5,  11— all  of  which  are 
indications  of  a  late  date. 


THE    NEW   TESTAMENT 

might  have  been.*  Be  this  as  it  may,  additions 
were  gradually  made  to  this  collection  of  logia 
and  all  finally  gathered  and  recast,  by  an  edito- 
rial hand,  into  the  gospel  as  we  now  have  it. 
Concerning  the  gospel  according  to  Mark, 
Papias  makes  this  statement:  "Mark,  as  the 
interpreter  of  Peter,  wrote  down  exactly,  but 
not  in  order,  all  that  Peter  remembered  of  what 
Jesus  had  said  or  done.  For  Mark  had  neither 
heard  the  Lord  nor  followed  Him,  but  afterward 
he  followed  Peter,  who  discoursed  as  need  arose, 
but  not  as  if  he  intended  to  give  an  orderly  col- 
lection of  the  Lord's  sayings.  Furthermore, 
Mark  took  care  to  omit  nothing  he  had  heard, 
and  to  write  nothing  false."  Just  how  Peter's 
reminiscences  were  shaped  into  our  Gospel  of 
Mark  we  cannot  tell.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
quite  clear  that  this  Proto-Mark  and  our  Gospel 
are  not  identical.  This  is  proved,  above  all,  by 
the  very  obvious  order  in  which  the  events  are 
related.  Again,  the  writer  furnishes  explana- 
tions of  all  the  Aramaic  terms  he  uses,  thus 
creating  the  irresistible  impression  that  he  is 

1  In  Mark  2:14  we  read  of  one  Levi,  a  tax-gatherer,  whom 
Jesus  invited  to  come  to  his  house.  The  writer  of  the  Gospel 
of  Matthew,  it  would  seem,  construed  this  invitation  as 
meaning  an  invitation  to  discipleship.  Hence  in  10:3  we 
have  Matthew  substituted  for  Levi. 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

writing  for  non-Jewish  readers.  Moreover,  his 
gospel  contains  a  number  of  Latin  expressions, 
such  as  "centurion"  and  "procurator,"  suggest- 
ing Rome  as  the  possible  place  whence  it  came. 
Besides  these  two  earliest  known  attempts  at 
committing  the  oral  tradition  to  writing— the 
logia  of  Matthew  and  Peter's  recollections  as 
recorded  by  Mark — we  have  to  note  also  the  at- 
tempts referred  to  in  the  preface  to  Luke's  gos- 
pel. Here  we  read  that  many  persons  tried  their 
hand  at  writing  out  the  oral  tradition  and  with 
varying  degrees  of  skill;  that  their  work  was 
often  incomplete,  inaccurate  or  lacking  in 
proper  arrangement  of  the  material ;  that  con- 
sequently Luke  felt  impelled  to  sift  the  imper- 
fect records  and  draft  a  complete,  accurate  and 
orderly  story  of  Jesus'  life  and  work.  The  pre- 
cise words  of  the  preface  are  these:  "For  as 
much  as  many  have  taken  in  hand  to  set  forth 
in  order  a  declaration  of  those  things  which  are 
most  surely  believed  among  us,  even  as  they 
delivered  them  unto  us,  who,  from  the  begin- 
ning, were  eyewitnesses  and  ministers  of  the 
word ;  it  seemed  good  to  me  also,  having  had  per- 
fect understanding  of  all  things  from  the  very 
first,  to  write  unto  thee,  in  order,  most  excellent 
Theophilus,  that  thou  mightest  know  the  cer- 

8 


THE    NEW   TESTAMENT 

tainty  of  those  things  wherein  thou  hast  been 
instructed." 

That  Matthew  and  Luke  both  drew  on  Mark 
for  material  is  obvious  to  even  the  most  casual 
reader  of  their  gospels.  Yet  there  are  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty  verses  in  the  gospels  of  Mat- 
thew and  Luke,  which  have  no  parallel  in  Mark's 
gospel.  And  here  the  resemblances  are  such  as 
to  compel  belief  in  a  single  source  for  the  mate- 
rial common  to  Matthew  and  Luke,  but  not  found 
in  Mark.  To  this  common  source  the  appella- 
tion "Q"  has  been  given — from  the  German, 
Quelle,  signifying  source.  Of  "Q"  we  know 
nothing.  Prof.  Harnack,  it  is  true,  holds  that 
in  the  "logia"  referred  to  by  Papias  we  may 
recognize  Q.*  But  to  this  view  valid  objections 
have  been  raised  which  we  cannot  now  discuss. 
Indeed,  our  digression  has  already  exceeded  the 
normal  limit,  and  we  must  return  at  once  to  the 
rise  of  the  New  Testament  as  a  canonical  work. 
Had  no  other  books  than  the  twenty-seven  com- 
posing the  New  Testament  come  into  existence, 
and  with  a  claim  to  recognition  as  of  equal 
worth,  the  task  of  making  a  collection  of  sacred 
scriptures  would  have  been  easy  enough.  But 
during  New  Testament  times  a  mass  of  ethical 

» A.  Harnack:  Sayings  of  Jesus.    Crown  Library. 
9 


THE   DAWN   OP   CHRISTIANITY 

and  religious  literature  was  produced,  all  in  the 
wake  of  that  missionary  enterprise  which  car- 
ried the  gospel  from  the  Jordan  to  the 
Euphrates,  and  from  the  Ehone  to  the  Nile,  and 
established  preachers  in  all  the  leading  cities  of 
this  area.  Some  of  these  preachers  wrote  ser- 
mons, others  attempted  to  show  forth  the  superi- 
ority of  Christianity  to  the  popular  cults,  or  to 
translate  the  gospel  into  the  language  of  Greek 
speculation.  Still  others  there  were  who  found 
in  the  martyrdoms  of  the  faithful,  victims  of 
cruel  and  false  charges,  a  subject  for  inspiring 
romance.  And  some  there  were  who  devoted 
their  literary  ability  to  the  production  of  moral 
and  spiritual  brochures  intended  to  stem  the  tide 
of  immorality  that  was  steadily  engulfing  the 
Grasco-Roman  civilization  of  the  period.  Thus 
it  was  that  the  religious  and  social  situation  in 
the  first  and  second  century  called  forth  a  num- 
ber and  variety  of  literary  products.  And  they 
included  all  four  of  the  types  represented  in  the 
New  Testament — Gospels,  such  as  those  accord- 
ing to  the  Egyptians,  according  to  the  Hebrews, 
according  to  Peter;  Epistles,  such  as  those  of 
Clement,  Barnabas ;  Acts,  such  as  those  of  Paul 
and  Tecla,  of  Andrew  and  of  Bartholomew; 
Apocalypses,  such  as  those  of  Peter  and  of 

10 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

James.  Add  to  these  the  many  apologia,  or 
defences  of  Christianity  against  the  objections 
raised  by  Jewish  and  Gentile  critics,  such  as 
"The  Dialogue  with  Trypho  the  Jew,"  written 
by  Justin  the  Martyr.  Add,  also,  the  refutations 
of  heresies,  such  as  were  written  by  Irenaeus; 
the  manuals  of  ecclesiastical  discipline  and 
ritual,  like  the  "Didache."  In  other  words,  by 
the  year  150  a  great  mass  of  Christian  literature 
had  been  published,  out  of  which  the  New  Tes- 
tament books  were  eventually  chosen. 

What  object  was  there  in  making  such  a  col- 
lection? When  was  the  issue  finally  settled  as 
to  which  books  should  be  included?  What  were 
the  standards  that  determined  the  choice?  Let 
us  address  ourselves  to  each  of  these  questions 
in  turn. 

As  long  as  men  had  Jesus  among  them  no  one 
felt  the  need  of  adding  any  scriptures  to  the 
Old  Testament  collection.  He  was  their  author- 
ity. After  his  death  it  was  the  oral  tradition  of 
his  words.  But  in  time  it  became  evident  that 
the  sense  of  certitude  attaching  to  these  oral  re- 
ports would  vanish  and  no  one  would  be  present 
who  could  testify  to  the  correctness  of  what  was 
quoted.  It  is  to  this  time  that  we  go  back  in 
tracing'the  rise  of  the  New  Testament  canon;  a 

11 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

time  when  the  twenty-seven  books  of  the  New 
Testament  were  not  yet  set  apart  from  the  mass 
of  literature  as  "scriptures";  when  the  Old 
Testament  was  not  yet  called  "Old"  because  it 
was  the  only  extant  Testament ;  a  time  when  the 
bond  of  union  in  the  Christian  Church  was  not 
a  creed,  nor  a  book,  nor  a  formula,  but  sim- 
ply following  Jesus;  when,  transcending  all 
thoughts  of  church  organization,  ritual  and  doc- 
trine, the  belief  in  the  speedy  return  of  Jesus 
preoccupied  Christian  attention;  a  time  when 
the  idea  of  a  canon  of  scripture  had  not  yet 
taken  definite  hold  of  Christian  minds.  What, 
then,  were  the  causes  that  led  to  the  formation 
of  the  New  Testament  canon?  We  may  divide 
them  conveniently  into  two  groups,  the  one  deal- 
ing with  those  causes  that  were  direct  and  exter- 
nal; the  other  concerned  with  those  that  were 
indirect  and  internal.  Under  the  former  group 
must  be  included,  first,  the  experience  of  mis- 
sionaries, who,  in  their  preaching,  appealed  for 
authority  to  books  not  universally  recognized 
as  worthy  to  be  quoted.  The  Epistle  of  Bar- 
nabas, for  example,  acknowledged  as  authorita- 
tive by  one  community,  was  not  so  considered 
by  another.  In  other  words,  Christianity  had  no 
scriptures  of  its  own,  corresponding  to  the  Old 

12 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

Testament  of  Judaism,  and  practical  experience 
in  the  work  of  making  converts  proved  the  im- 
perative necessity  of  having  a  canon  or  authori- 
tative standard  to  which  all  preachers  should 
alike  appeal  for  the  successful  propagation  of 
the  new  religion. 

A  second  direct  and  external  cause  for  the 
instituting  of  such  a  scriptural  authority  was 
the  rise  of  rival  sects  which  sought  to  appro- 
priate Jesus  and  his  message  for  the  advance- 
ment of  their  own  conflicting  views.  Early  in 
the  second  century  a  number  of  religious  move- 
ments had  sprung  into  existence,  all  of  them,  in 
their  respective  claims,  rivaling  Christianity. 
The  two  most  important  of  these  were  Gnosti- 
cism and  Montanism.  Both  originated  in  Asia 
Minor,  and  both  found  their  way  to  Alexandria, 
Rome,  Lyons  and  other  leading  centers  of  West- 
ern Christianity,  threatening  the  very  life  of 
the  infant  Church.  Gnosticism  derived  its  name 
from  the  insistence  on  gnosis,  or  knowledge, 
which  was  the  dominant  note  in  its  teaching 
and  which  meant  initiation  into  the  "secret  of 
deliverance  from  the  lower  world  of  matter" 
wherein  all  human  souls  have  become  entangled. 
Knowledge  of  the  mystic,  divine  plan  was  the 
key  to  this  deliverance.    Gnosticism  being  con- 

13 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

cerned  with  a  metaphysical  conception  of  re- 
demption (from  the  lower  status  of  man's  nat- 
ural life)  stood  in  direct  opposition  to  the  Chris- 
tian conception  which  was  fundamentally- 
ethical,  relating  directly  to  release  from  sin. 
A  religio-philosophical  speculation,  Gnosticism 
sought  to  give  sanction  to  the  notion  that  Jesus 
had  committed  secret  knowledge  to  certain  of 
his  disciples  and  that  this  esoteric  tradition  dif- 
fered from  the  exoteric  knowledge  circulated 
throughout  the  Christian  Church.  Conspicuous 
among  the  representatives  of  this  sect  was  Mar- 
cion,  a  wealthy  ship-builder,  who,  about  the  year 
140,  came  from  the  borders  of  the  Black  Sea  to 
Rome,  and  there  founded  a  Marcionite  Church, 
the  canonical  scriptures  of  which  included  a 
modified  edition  of  the  Epistles  of  Paul  and 
the  Gospel  of  Luke,  recast  to  suit  the  peculiar 
claims  of  the  sect.  This  falsifying  and  interpo- 
lating of  Christian  documents  to  support  a 
gnosis,  or  secret  knowledge,  as  against  the 
simple  faith  for  which  Christianity  stood, 
brought  on  a  fierce  conflict  between  Marcion  and 
leaders  of  the  Christian  Church,  making  it  ap- 
parent to  the  latter  that  a  canon  of  Christian 
scriptures  was  an  immediate  necessity. 
Contemporary  with  Gnosticism  was  Montan- 

14 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

ism,  owing  its  name  to  one  Montanus,  a  Phryg- 
ian, who  claimed  to  be  the  "Paraclete"  or  Com- 
forter which  (according  to  the  Fourth  Gospel) 
Jesus  promised  to  send  to  his  disciples  as  his 
abiding  presence  among  them.^  Montanus  pro- 
fessed to  be  perfect  and  exhorted  his  hearers 
to  be  perfect,  holding  that  the  final  act  in  the 
drama  of  redemption  was  about  to  be  enacted 
at  Pepusa,  a  village  of  Phrygia.  There  the  new 
Jerusalem  would  come  down  from  heaven  and 
be  the  permanent  abode  of  the  saved.  To  sup- 
port his  thesis,  Montanus  made  use  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  but  having  no  canon  of  scrip- 
tures to  which  his  own  inspirations  could  be 
referred,  these  were  promptly  put  on  a  par 
with  the  gospel,  to  be  regarded  as  divine  revela- 
tions. To  counteract  so  bold  a  claim,  however 
sincerely  made ;  to  demonstrate  that  the  age  of 
revelation  had  gone  by,  and  to  refute  the  notion 
that  any  authority  attached  to  these  wild  and 
wandering  "inspirations"  embodied  in  preach- 
ing of  the  Millerite  type,  it  was  felt  that  the  one 
thing  needful  was  the  immediate  formation  of  a 
New  Testament  canon.  In  other  words,  the  ex- 
travagant and  fictitious  claims  of  Gnosticism 
and    Montanism    drove    orthodox    Christians 

1  John  15:26. 

15 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

in  the  second  century  to  a  consolidation  of  senti- 
ment as  to  what  were  the  accredited  documents 
of  their  religion  and  the  resulting  product  was 
the  formation  of  a  New  Testament  canon. 

Coming  now  to  the  second  group  of  causes, 
the  indirect  and  internal  causes  that  led  to  the 
adoption  of  a  scriptural  canon,  we  take  account 
of  a  succession  of  agencies  that  were  at  work 
within  the  Church  itself  and  that  would  certainly 
have  compelled  the  formation  of  a  canon,  even 
had  there  been  no  external  causes  in  operation 
pointing  to  this  end.  Deep  below  the  surface 
of  the  conflict  with  Gnosticism  and  Montanism 
there  were  conditions  and  controversies  within 
Christianity  that  acted  as  all-sufficient  causes 
for  the  establishment  of  a  documentary  author- 
ity on  all  questions  of  faith  and  practice. 

Consider,  for  example,  that  question  of 
ecclesiastical  order  which  occasionally  crops  up 
in  our  own  day  and  which  was  a  burning  issue 
in  the  second  century,  the  question  of  scripture 
selections  for  reading  at  the  Sunday  services. 
Then,  as  now,  there  were  ministers  who  took 
liberties  with  this  element  of  ritual  observance, 
and  then,  as  now,  it  was  felt  that  a  line  must 
be  drawn  between  what  shall  be  regarded  as 
"regular"  and  "irregular"  in  this  matter  of  pub- 

16 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

lie  readings  at  church  services.  In  the  early 
Christian  Church  it  had  long  been  unsettled 
what  books  should  be  read  from  the  pulpit. 
Agreement  had  to  be  reached  because  of  the  fre- 
quency of  pulpit  exchanges  and  the  lively  inter- 
course among  the  churches  generally.  The 
visiting  clergyman  from  an  eastern  church 
conducting  the  service  in  a  western  church  might 
introduce  scripture  selections  not  approved  by 
its  members.  Here,  then,  was  a  liturgical  reason 
for  deciding  upon  a  canon  of  scriptures. 
Or,  consider  the  widespread  need  for  de- 
fending Christianity  against  the  attacks  of 
Jewish  and  Gentile  critics  and  persecutors.  Or, 
take  again,  the  passion  for  proving  Christianity 
superior  to  its  rivals,  as  we  see  it  in  the  writings 
of  Justin  and  IrensBUS,  and  we  are  confronted 
with  a  religious  situation  that  throws  further 
light  on  the  rise  of  the  New  Testament  canon. 
These  men  in  their  apologetic  and  educational 
work  made  constant  use  of  Christian  documents. 
Yet  they  held  divergent  views  as  to  which  books 
should  be  considered  authoritative.  Hence,  to 
meet  the  need  created  by  this  situation,  to  in- 
sure uniformity  on  the  part  of  all  apologists  and 
instructors  seeking  to  define  Christianity  and 
set  forth  its  requirements,  the  formation  of  a 

17 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

canon  of  scripture  became  an  absolute  necessity. 
A  third  cause  for  fixing  such  a  body  of  scrip- 
ture, and  one  which,  like  the  preceding  causes, 
arose  within  the  Church,  was  the  absorption  of 
interest  in  missionary  expansion  and  the  conse- 
quent loss  of  intensive  development,  threaten- 
ing dissolution  of  the  churches.  Imperative  it 
was  that  along  with  the  process  of  expansion 
there  should  go,  pari  passu,  the  process  of  uni- 
fication. Were  the  separate  churches,  whose 
number  was  steadily  increasing,  to  hold  diverse 
views  on  questions  of  doctrine,  ritual  and  gov- 
ernment, disintegration  would  inevitably  set  in 
and  Christianity  soon  disappear.  Well  enough 
to  aim  at  the  spread  of  the  new  religion,  but  its 
very  life  was  conditioned  by  agreement  among 
all  the  scattered  churches  as  to  what  it  stood 
for,  or  in  which  scriptures  Christian  doctrine, 
ritual  and  rules  of  ecclesiastical  government  are 
authoritatively  presented.  Nor  is  the  statement 
at  all  extravagant  that  what  saved  expanding 
Christianity  from  impending  collapse  was  the 
unification  brought  about  by  the  formation  of  a 
canon  of  scripture.  Quite  apart,  then,  from  the 
struggle  with  rival  and  heretical  sects  which 
precipitated  a  crisis  and  constituted  the 
direct    and    external    cause    for    the    adop- 

18 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

tion  of  a  scriptural  canon,  there  existed 
these  internal  conditions,  within  the  Church 
itself,  and  which,  though  acting  only  as  indirect 
causes,  were  yet  of  themselves  sufficient  to  com- 
pel the  establishment  of  a  canon  and  thereby 
crush  out  the  rivals  of  Christianity. 

Our  next  question  is,  when  was  the  canon 
formed?  Only  after  protracted  and  heated  con- 
troversy. There  were  those  who,  like  Papias, 
had  "heard  the  words  of  the  Lord"  from  per- 
sons who  had  conversed  with  Him,  and  this  oral 
tradition  was  more  precious  to  them  than  any 
written  record.  Over  against  these  conserv- 
atives stood  men  like  Ignatius,  who  complained 
that  the  written  word  is  not  universally  acknowl- 
edged. In  one  of  his  letters  Ignatius  wrote :  "I 
beseech  you,  brethren,  to  avoid  strife.  For  I 
have  heard  some  say  that  if  they  do  not  find  a 
precept  in  the  Old  Testament  that  is  recorded 
in  the  gospels  they  will  not  accept  it.  And  when 
I  replied,  'It  is  written,*  they  answered,  'That  is 
just  the  question.' "  Thus,  in  the  first  half  of 
the  second  century  there  were  Christians  hostile 
to  any  effort  that  would  detract  from  the  author- 
itative place  which  the  Old  Testament  held.  But 
when,  in  the  next  generation,  Justin  declared 
that  the  gospels  are  read  universally  through- 

19 


THE   DAWN   OP   CHRISTIANITY 

out  the  Christian  Church,  that  "they  belong  to 
our  writings"  and  are  quoted  with  the  formula 
"it  is  written"  the  struggle  for  recognition  of 
the  gospels  as  canonical  was  over.  The  only 
question  that  remained  concerned  limiting  their 
number  to  four.  And  for  this  achievement 
IrensBUs,  who  flourished  about  the  year  180, 
must  be  credited.  He  settled  the  issue  in  terms 
of  the  following  argument: 

"It  is  not  possible  that  the  gospels  can  be 
either  more  or  fewer  than  they  are.  For  since 
there  are  four  zones  of  the  world  in  which  we 
live,  and  four  principal  winds  {riaaapa  Ka8o\iKa 
nvtinara),  while  the  Church  is  scattered 
throughout  all  the  world,  and  the  'pillar  and 
ground'  (I  Tim.  3:15)  of  the  Church  is  the  Gos- 
pel and  the  Spirit  of  Life ;  it  is  fitting  that  she 
should  have  four  pillars,  breathing  out  immor- 
tality on  every  side  and  vivifying  men  afresh. 
From  which  fact  it  is  evident  that  the  Word, 
the  Artificer  of  all,  He  that  sitteth  upon  the 
cherubim  and  contains  all  things.  He  who  was 
manifested  to  man,  has  given  us  the  Gospel 
under  four  aspects,  but  bound  together  by  one 
Spirit.  As  also  David  says,  when  entreating  his 
manifestation,  *Thou  that  sittest  between  cher- 
ubim, shine  forth.'    (Ps.  80:1.)    For  the  oher- 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

nbim,  too,  were  four-faced,  and  their  faces  were 
images  of  the  dispensation  of  the  Son  of  God." 

"And  such  as  was  the  form  of  the  living  crea- 
tures, so  was  also  the  character  of  the  GospeL 
For  the  living  creatures  are  quadriform,  and 
the  Gospel  is  quadriform,  as  is  also  the 
course  followed  by  the  Lord.  For  this 
reason  were  four  principal  (<a8oX«at)  cov- 
enants given  to  the  human  race — one,  prior 
to  the  deluge,  under  Adam;  the  second,  that 
after  the  deluge,  under  Noah;  the  third,  the 
giving  of  the  law,  under  Moses ;  the  fourth,  that 
which  renovates  man,  and  sums  up  all  things  in 
itself  by  means  of  the  Gospel,  raising  and  bear- 
ing men  on  its  wings  (the  eagle)  into  the  heav- 
enly kingdom. 

"These  things  being  so,  all  who  destroy  the 
form  of  the  Gospel  are  vain,  unlearned  and  also 
audacious."^ 

The  canonicity  of  the  four  gospels  settled, 
there  arose  the  question  of  attitude  to  other  pro- 
ductions, such  as  the  letters  of  Paul  and  other 
epistolary  literature  of  the  first  century  which 
breathed  the  spirit  of  Jesus.  Apocalypses,  too, 
there  were  and  short  histories  of  Christianity 
from  its  foundation ;  on  these  sentence  must  be 

» Irenseus:  "Against  Heresies,"  Bk.  Ill,  Chap.  XI. 
3  21 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

passed  from  the  standpoint  of  canonical  worth. 
How  could  Paul's  letters  be  left  out  from  any 
authoritative  list  of  scriptures,  seeing  the  inval- 
uable services  he  had  rendered  in  organizing 
the  Christian  religion.  Were  there  not  also 
other  letters,  bearing  apostolic  names — Peter, 
James  and  John — and  should  not  these  be  in- 
cluded in  the  canon?  How  was  it  that  of  all 
the  letters  that  did  not  bear  Paul's  name  only- 
seven  were  canonized,  and  these  only  after  con- 
siderable debate,  as  the  writings  of  early  Chris- 
tian Fathers  testify?  As  for  the  one  Apoc- 
alypse included  in  the  New  Testament  collec- 
tion, its  right  to  be  there  was  long  and  bitterly 
contested,  even  after  the  canon  was  closed. 

What,  then,  in  conclusion,  was  the  principle 
that  determined  the  choice  of  books  for  the 
canon?  The  answer  is,  apostolic  origin.  Yet 
how  loosely  was  this  principle  applied!  For 
even  Paul's  letters  could  not  be  strictly  regarded 
as  apostolic,  he  having  been  "accepted"  as  an 
apostle  by  Peter,  James  and  John  when  he  came, 
a  convert,  to  Jerusalem,  where  they  were  en- 
gaged in  supervising  the  missionary  work  com- 
mitted to  their  trust.^  Similarly,  the  gospels  of 
Luke  and  Mark  were  open  to  the  same  objection. 

»Actsl3:2;  15:22;  21:18. 
22 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

They  could  be  construed  as  of  apostolic  origin 
only  in  the  sense  that  "Mark  was  the  inter- 
preter of  Peter,"  ^  and  Luke  the  companion  of 
Paul.2 

The  Book  of  Acts,  too,  gained  admission  to  the 
canon  on  the  ground  that  it  reported  the  labors 
of  apostles,  though  not  itself  of  apostolic  origin. 
The  so-called  "Pastoral"  epistles  of  Timothy 
and  Titus  owed  their  place  in  the  canon  to  the 
fact  that  they  strengthened  the  hierarchy  which 
rooted  itself  in  the  apostles.  So,  again,  the 
Apocalypse  escaped  exclusion  in  that  it  was 
known  as  "The  Revelation  of  St.  John  the 
Divine."  Far,  then,  from  being  a  mere  accu- 
mulation, the  New  Testament  canon  was  the 
product  of  a  process  of  selection,  and  many  a 
dearly  loved,  devoutly  cherished  book,  like  the 
Epistle  of  Barnabas,  the  Shepherd  of  Hennas 
or  the  Didache,  had  to  forego  inclusion  because 
it  bore  no  apostolic  name,  or  because  its  contents 
stood  in  no  recognized  apostolic  relation. 

In  the  gradual  process  of  canonization  three 
distinct  periods  can  be  discerned.  The  first,  ex- 
tending to  the  middle  of  the  second  century 
(130),  is  that  in  which  the  gospels  have  their 
influence    and    weight    as    vehicles    of    Jesup' 

^  Peter.  5:13.    » Col.  4:14. 

23 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

teaching  and  the  epistles  of  Paul  have  their 
measure  of  reverence  and  appeal  as  writings  of 
the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  But  in  the  case  of 
neither  gospels  nor  epistles  was  there,  in  this 
first  period,  any  thought  of  a  canon,  to  be  placed 
alongside  the  Old  Testament.  The  second  period 
extends  from  the  middle  of  the  second  century- 
through  the  thirty  years  that  followed,  when, 
under  pressure  from  without  and  within  the 
Church,  the  thought  of  a  canon  took  strong  and 
irresistible  hold.  The  third  period,  covering 
nearly  two  and  a  half  centuries,  is  that  in  which 
the  idea  of  a  canon  is  definitely  fixed  and  the 
limits  of  its  application  are  slowly  determined. 
To  this  period,  therefore,  belongs  the  fragment 
of  the  "Muratori"  canon,  discovered  by  Signer 
Muratori,  librarian  of  Milan  in  1740.  Accord- 
ing to  this  fragment,  which  dates  from  the  third 
quarter  of  the  second  century,  the  Christian 
scriptures  consisted  of  the  four  gospels  and  a 
group  of  thirteen  epistles.  Twenty-five  years 
later,  Origen  described  the  collection  as  includ- 
ing gospels,  epistles  and  the  Apocalypse.  Thus, 
in  this  period,  the  idea  of  Christianity  having  a 
volume  of  sacred  writings  of  its  own  becomes 
universally  accepted  and  all  doubts  as  to  the 
admissibility  of  certain  books  are  gradually  re- 

24 


THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

moved  from  both  the  Eastern  and  Western 
Church.  Just  here  it  may  be  well  to  recall  the 
fact  that  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  remained 
united  till  the  year  589,  when,  at  a  non-cecumen- 
ical  council,  held  in  Toledo,  Spain,  there  was  mi- 
authoritatively  added  the  clause  "and  the  Son" 
(filioque)  to  the  third  section  of  the  Nicene 
creed :  "I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost  which  pro- 
ceedeth  from  the  Father  and  the  Son."  Against 
this  insertion  the  Eastern  Church  rebelled  as  an 
heretical  addition,  and  contrary  to  the  true  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  as  formulated  at  Nicaea  in 
323.  Prolonged  dissension  followed,  till  finally, 
in  1054,  Leo  IX  excommunicated  the  Eastern 
Church.  Since  that  date  the  severed  parts  of 
the  Holy  Catholic  Church — Greek  and  Roman — 
have  had  independent  existence  and  separate 
government. 

The  greatest  single  influence  in  securing  a 
settlement  of  the  "canon"  was  undoubtedly  that 
of  Augustine,  bishop  of  Hippo  during  the  first 
quarter  of  the  fifth  century  and  leading  repre- 
sentative of  the  Western  Church.  It  was  at  his 
instigation  that  (1)  the  twenty-seven  books  com- 
posing the  New  Testament  were  set  apart  from 
the  mass  of  more  or  less  authoritative  literature 
and  (2)  at  the  Councils  of  Carthage  in  397  and  in 

25 


THE   DAWN   OP   CHRISTIANITY 

419  they  were  pronounced  scripture  and  (3)  pub- 
lic reading  of  other  books  was  prohibited  on  pain 
of  excommunication.  No  such  conciliar  action 
was  ever  taken  by  the  Eastern  Church.  Athana- 
sius,  in  his  Easter  letter  to  the  Church  at  Alex- 
andria in  367,  had  practically  fixed  the  canon  of 
twenty-seven  books,  though  this  was  never  rati- 
fied by  any  Eastern  Council.  Hence  it  happens 
that  the  Eastern,  or  Greek,  Church  still  remains 
noncommittal  on  the  question,  though  adhering 
to  the  Athanasian  decision.  And  this  decision 
Augustine  accepted,  successfully  recommending 
to  the  Carthaginian  councils  the  adoption  of  the 
Athanasian  canon.  Finally  in  495,  by  a  decree 
of  Pope  Gelasius,  this  same  canon  was  formally 
and  authoritatively  declared  to  be  the  canon  of 
the  New  Testament. 


II 


THE  RELIABILITY  OF  THE  RECORD 

The  earliest  extant  manuscript  of  the  New 
Testament  is  written  in  Greek.  But  Jesus  and 
his  Palestinian  contemporaries  spoke  Aramaic 
and  it  may  fairly  be  doubted  if  the  Greek  lan- 
guage was  known  to  Jesus  and  his  disciples.  As 
for  Hebrew,  in  which  the  ancient  law,  the  dis- 
courses of  the  prophets  and  the  traditions  of 
the  nation  had  been  written,  this  had  ceased  to 
be  commonly  spoken  in  Jesus'  day,  except  by 
members  of  the  Eabbinical  schools.  Hebrew 
was  particularly  the  language  of  religion.  In  it 
hymns  were  composed  and  chronicles  written, 
but  it  was  by  no  means  generally  imderstood. 
Even  in  the  synagogues  it  was  necessary,  when 
the  Scriptures  were  read,  to  have  them  trans- 
lated, verse  by  verse,  into  the  vernacular  of  the 
people.  That  this  was  Aramaic  can  scarcely  be 

37 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

doubted.  For,  in  the  first  two  gospels  a  number 
of  words  are  found  whicli,  even  through  their 
Greek  spelling,  show  us  that  Aramaic  was  the 
language  spoken  by  Jesus  and  his  followers.* 
Add  to  this  evidence  the  testimony  of  the  au- 
thor of  the  first  chapter  of  Acts  (1 :19)  who  uses 
the  expression,  "in  the  language  of  the  dwellers 
in  Jerusalem,"  when  stating  the  name  by  which 
the  field  in  which  Judas  was  buried,  "Akel- 
dama,"  was  known.  As  evidencing  the  general 
lack  of  acquaintance  with  Greek  we  have  only 
to  recall  the  Talmudic  sentiment,  "Cursed  be 
he  who  teaches  his  child  Greek"  and  the  deeply 
rooted  prejudice  against  all  things  Greek,  gene- 
rated in  Hebrew  hearts  through  three  centuries 
of  subjugation  and  oppression  under  Greek 
rule.  Furthermore,  we  have  the  testimony  of 
Josephus,  to  the  effect  that  he  found  great  dif- 
ficulty in  mastering  Greek  sufficiently  well  to 
write  his  books  in  that  language.  When,  there- 
fore, the  gospel  tradition  was  first  given  cur- 
rency in  Palestine,  it  was  not  in  Greek  but  in 
Aramaic;  and  in  the  latter  language  not  even 
a  fragment  of  gospel-literature  is  known  to  us. 

^See  Matt.  5:22;  6:24;  Mark  5:41;  14:36;  Matt.  16:17; 
27:46.  Compare  Matt.  26:73  which  points  to  the  difficulty 
of  pronouncing  gutturals,  experienced  by  GaUleans. 

28 


RELIABILITY,   OF   THE   EECORD 

Jesus  left  to  posterity  no  written  record  of 
his  own.  The  sole  instance  of  his  having  re- 
corded anything  is  reported  in  the  eighth  chap- 
ter of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Here  is  an  inter- 
polated story  of  a  conversation  of  Jesus  with 
an  adulteress,  according  to  which,  when  her 
accusers  slunk  away  under  his  stinging  re- 
buke, "Let  him  that  is  without  sin  cast  the  first 
stone,"  Jesus  "stooped  down  and  wrote  with 
his  finger  upon  the  ground."  But  what  he 
wrote  vanished  in  the  moment  of  its  appear- 
ance. 

Socrates  had  his  Xenophon  to  jot  down 
"memorabilia"  of  the  master.  Mohammed  be- 
queathed to  his  followers  "revelations"  which, 
after  his  death,  were  edited  by  his  dearest  dis- 
ciple, Abu-Bekr  and  since  known  as  the  "Qu'- 
ran."  But  Jesus,  like  Gotama  the  Buddha,  was 
content  with  "speaking  the  word."  His  dis- 
ciples were  chiefly  fishermen  and  peasants  and 
from  them  no  literary  impulse  could  have  origi- 
nated. 

Shortly  after  his  death  they  returned  to 
Jerusalem  from  Galilee,  whither  they  had  fled 
when  he  was  arrested  in  the  Garden  of  Gethse- 
mane.  Then  it  was  that  oral  tradition  of  his 
life  and  ministry  began  to  take  shape;  and  it 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

was  transmitted  solely  by  word  of  mouth  from 
disciple  to  convert,  year  after  year,  for  at 
least  a  decade.  One  would  naturally  suppose 
that  so  precious  a  tradition  would  have  been 
committed  to  writing  in  the  very  year  of  the 
crucifixion  and  that  delay  would  have  been 
deemed  an  unpardonable  sin.  But  the  truth  is, 
that,  conservatively  estimated,  an  interval  of 
not  less  than  ten  years  elapsed  before  written 
transmission  of  the  gospels  began.  Just  when 
the  gospel-story  first  appeared  in  manuscript 
we  cannot  tell.  The  earliest  of  the  four  gos- 
pels as  we  now  have  it,  was  not  written  before 
70  A.D.,  whereas  several  of  Paul's  epistles  had 
appeared  twenty  years  earlier.  Yet  in  none  of 
these  are  written  gospels  mentioned,  neither  is 
the  existence  of  such  presupposed.  Nor  again, 
in  any  other  epistles  of  the  first  half  of  the  first 
century,  whether  within  or  without  the  New 
Testament  canon,  is  there  any  reference  to  writ- 
ten gospels.  Incidentally,  it  may  be  noted  that 
the  theory,  broached  by  Bruno  Bauer,  to  the  ef- 
fect that  a  creative  writer  freely  composed  the 
entire  record  without  any  previous  oral  cur- 
rency, is  altogether  fanciful  and  has  never  se- 
cured scholarly  support. 
Why  then,  it  will  be  asked,  should  a  period  of 

30 


RELIABILITY    OF    THE    RECORD 

ten  or  more  years  have  been  allowed  to  elapse 
before  any  data  concerning  Jesus  were  com- 
mitted to  writing?  The  immediate  reason  was 
that  all  his  followers  believed  he  would  very 
soon  return  from  heaven  to  earth  and  fulfil  the 
function  of  Messiah.  We  shall  have  occasion  to 
dwell  on  this  belief  at  greater  length  in  a  later 
lecture,  and  so  need  note  only  the  bearing  of 
the  belief  on  the  lack  of  any  written  records 
concerning  Jesus  at  this  time.  Living  in  hourly 
expectation  of  the  return  of  Jesus  from  heaven, 
what  interest  could  there  be  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  his  biography?  Better  employ  what 
little  time  remains  to  saving  sinners  from  the 
impending  doom  that  awaits  the  unrepentant 
and  fitting  them  for  membership  in  the  new  so- 
cial order  which  Messiah-Jesus  would  soon  in- 
augurate, than  make  literary  provision  for  a  fu- 
ture that  will  have  no  use  for  it.  Such  was  the 
point  of  view  which  the  Parousia  or  "coming  of 
the  Lord"  produced,  such  the  vital  and  practi- 
cal issue  that  confronted  the  followers  of  Jesus 
in  the  first  years  of  their  life  without  him. 
Here,  then,  is  the  primary  reason  for  the  failure 
to  write  an  account  of  Jesus  and  his  work. 
There  was  no  occasion  for  more  than  oral  trans- 
mission of  what  was  known.    A  further  rea- 

31 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

son  for  adherence  to  the  oral  method  is  seen 
in  the  acknowledged  superiority  of  the  voice  to 
the  pen  as  an  effective  instrument  for  communi- 
cating to  poor  and  illiterate  people  the  story  of 
Jesus'  life  and  gospel.  And  this  class  of  society 
was  the  first  to  respond  to  his  message,  a  people 
who  could  have  neither  purchased  nor  read 
manuscripts,  had  they  been  furnished.  More- 
over, it  was  a  long-established  Jewish  custom 
to  transmit  the  accumulated  store  of  learning 
orally.  That  mass  of  exposition  and  commen- 
tary on  the  Pentateuch,  known  as  the  Talmud, 
had  been  handed  down  by  word  of  mouth  for 
two  hundred  years.  The  rabbis  indeed,  forbade 
committing  it  to  writing  and  only  after  the 
final  overthrow  of  Jewish  national  hope,  at  the 
end  of  the  second  century,  was  the  prohibition 
annulled.  The  self-same  method  of  transmis- 
sion obtained  among  the  ancient  Hindus  and 
Buddhists,  though  with  this  important  dif- 
ference, that  whereas  these  people  possessed  a 
fixed  deposit  of  teaching  to  be  handed  down  and 
employed  trained  repeaters  for  the  work  of 
transmission,  the  gospel-story  was  still  in  the 
making  and  the  men  who  formed  it,  far  from 
being  trained,  came  directly  from  the  water- 
front and  the  market-place.    Even  to  this  day, 

32 


KELIABILITY   OF   THE   EECORD 

in  Jerusalem,  on  the  very  site  of  Solomon's 
temple,  Mohammedans  may  be  seen  teaching 
the  illiterate  the  Qu'ran  by  the  same  repetitive 
process  as  of  old.  Before  leaving  the  question 
of  oral  transmission  as  precursor  of  the  writ- 
ten word,  the  testimony  of  the  Apostle  Paul 
must  be  recalled.  In  his  letter  to  the  converts 
at  Corinth,  he  urges  them  to  "hold  fast  to  the 
traditions"  and  when  he  enumerates  the  various 
"gifts"  to  be  prized,  he  mentions  among  others, 
teaching,  healing,  speaking  with  tongues;  but 
not  a  word  does  he  say  of  writing  as  one  of 
these  gifts.  His  omission  of  it  would  seem 
to  indicate  the  absence  of  any  literary  activity 
among  the  immediate  followers  of  Jesus. 

Assuredly  in  the  first  half  of  the  first  cen- 
tury, no  one  had  dreamed  of  adding  a  new  series 
of  scriptures  to  the  Old  Testament,  nor  even  of 
drawing  up  a  formal  "life  of  Jesus."  What  then 
caused  the  precious  tradition  to  be  committed 
to  writing?  First,  the  non-fulfilment  of  the 
Messianic  expectation.  Jesus  did  not  return  to 
earth.  In  the  third  gospel  we  find  repeated  ref- 
erence to  delay  in  Messiah's  coming.  It  found 
expression  in  the  parable  of  the  unjust  judge^ 
and  in  the  story  of  the  nobleman  who  went 

» Luke  18:1-8. 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

away  to  a  distant  land  to  "receive  for  himself 
a  kingdom  and  return."  ^  The  sense  of  disap- 
pointment appears  again  in  the  words:  "We 
trusted  that  it  had  been  he  who  should  redeem 
Israel."  ^  And  in  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter, 
latest  of  the  New  Testament  books,  written 
about  the  year  150  a.d.,  we  find  the  faithful 
confronted  with  the  question  of  scoffers: 
*'Where  is  the  promise  of  his  coming?  for  since 
the  fathers  fell  asleep,  all  things  remain  as  they 
were  from  the  beginning."  Thus  under  the 
stress  of  disappointment  and  misgiving  as  to 
Jesus'  return,  there  arose  the  spontaneous  im- 
pulse to  write  down  what  could  be  remembered 
of  his  teaching  and  life. 

A  further  reason  for  committal  of  the  gospel 
to  writing  was  the  extension  of  missionary 
preaching  beyond  Palestine,  among  peoples  who 
knew  little,  if  anything,  of  Jesus  and  his  mes- 
sage. Such  scanty  information  as  they  would 
receive  from  itinerant  preachers  would  make 
the  possession  of  some  permanent  memorial  em- 
inently desirable,  so  that  it  might  be  studied 
and  memorized.  We  have  a  hint  of  this  in  the 
preface  to  Luke's  gospel.  He  refers  to  various 
attempts  that  were  made  to  reduce  the  oral 

•  Luke  19:11,  12.    « Luke  24:21. 
34 


RELIABILITY  OF  THE  RECORD 

tradition  to  writing  but  as  these  were  defec- 
tive, the  author  proposes  to  "set  in  order  and 
accurately"  for  the  sake  of  the  convert  Theo- 
philus,  (to  confirm  him  in  his  newly  accepted 
faith)  all  that  had  been  handed  down  from 
apostolic  eye  and  earwitnesses. 

Once  more,  successive  persecutions  of  the 
infant  Church,  followed  by  flight  of  the  mem- 
bers from  Jerusalem  and  finally  leaving  the 
infant  Church  without  a  rallying  center,  these 
experiences  made  it  imperative  to  have  an 
authoritative  written  record  of  the  gospel, 
precisely  as  the  deportation  of  the  Jews  from 
Jerusalem  to  Babylon,  in  the  days  of  Nebu- 
chadrezzar, gave  rise  to  the  need  of  written  law 
and  history  to  serve  as  a  standard  round  which 
the  exiled  people  of  Yahweh  might  rally. 

Still  one  other  reason  must  be  noted  for  con- 
version of  the  oral  tradition  into  written  form. 
The  rapid  growth  of  the  infant  Church,  increas- 
ing from  the  one  hundred  and  twenty  who  con- 
stituted the  original  community  in  Jerusalem, 
to  several  thousand^  would,  of  necessity,  call  for 
teaching-material  that  could  be  used  in  mis- 
sionary work  by  men  who  had  neither  seen  nor 
heard  Jesus  and  for  whom,  under  the  circum- 

» Acts  1:15;  2:41;  4:4. 

35 


THE  DAWN  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

stances,  anything  like  vocational  training  was 
impossible.  The  primitive  written  forms  which 
the  first  three  gospels  assumed  furnished  such 
teaching-material.  But  even  when  the  oral  tra- 
dition had  thus  acquired  its  incipient  literary 
form,  no  one  single  composition  would  have 
embodied  all  the  data  in  circulation  among  the 
churches.  Various  editions  of  the  gospel-story 
must  have  been  published,  differing  in  sub- 
stance and  in  style,  the  precursors  of  our  first 
three  gospels,  in  which  we  note  not  only  such  dif- 
ferences but  also  the  absence  of  certain  sayings 
of  Jesus  found  elsewhere.  It  is,  for  example, 
in  the  report  of  Paul's  speech  to  the  elders  at 
Ephesus,^  and  nowhere  in  the  gospels,  that  we 
find  a  quotation  from  Jesus,  "It  is  more 
blessed  to  give  than  to  receive."  Similarly,  in 
the  works  of  other  early  Christian  writers,  we 
meet  with  a  number  of  sayings  of  Jesus  not  in- 
cluded in  any  of  the  gospel-biographies,  witness, 
for  example,  the  following:  "Because  of  the 
weak  I  became  weak  and  because  of  the  hungry 
I  became  hungered."  "They  who  would  enter 
my  Kingdom  must  lay  hold  of  me  through  an- 
guish and  suffering."  "If  ye  be  gathered  unto 
me  and  keep  not  the  commandments,  I  will  put 
1  Acts  20:  35. 

36 


RELIABILITY    OF    THE    RECORD 

you  away,  saying,  depart  from  me  ye  wlio  work 
iniquity." 

The  gospels,  then,  as  they  have  come  down 
to  us,  are  not  verbatim  reports,  nor  were  their 
authors  personally  acquainted  with  Jesus. 
Rather  are  the  gospels  the  net  result  of  a  com- 
plex process,  the  genesis  of  which  we  can  trace 
as  far  back  as  the  crucifixion.  And  the  culmina- 
tion of  that  process  was  the  recognition  of  these 
gospels  as  scripture,  as  part  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment canon — the  sole  and  final  authoritative 
source  of  information  concerning  Jesus  and  his 
gospel.  Clearly,  then,  we  must  not  think  of  the 
gospels  as  literary  units,  but  as  literary  aggre- 
gations. They  "grew  as  grows  the  grass,"  tak- 
ing up  into  themselves  ingredients  from  the  soil 
and  atmosphere.  For,  many  influences  were  at 
work  in  the  first  century  to  color,  enlarge  and 
distort  the  tradition.  There  was,  for  example, 
the  belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  the  mould 
in  which  the  synoptic  biographies  were  shaped. 
There  existed  also  the  belief  that  the  Hebrew 
prophets  had  foretold  every  detail  concerning 
Messiah-Jesus'  life.  Hence  the  spontaneous 
turning  to  the  Old  Testament  for  prophetic 
confirmation  of  reported  incidents  and  deeds 
as  well  as  for  data  to  supply  what  was  lacking 

4  37 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

in  the  tradition.  Again,  there  existed  intense 
admiration  and  reverence  for  the  person  of 
Jesus,  sentiments  that  gained  in  strength  and 
depth  with  the  passing  of  the  years  and  that 
did  their  part  in  amplifying  and  modifying  the 
original  tradition.  It  would  carry  us  too  far 
afield  to  enter  upon  a  detailed  discussion  and 
illustration  of  these  and  other  agencies  that 
operated  to  give  the  gospels  the  final  form  they 
assumed  as  part  of  the  New  Testament.  Suf- 
fice it  simply  to  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  there 
were  such  influences  at  work  and  to  ask  whether 
or  not  we  are  to  see  in  them  indications  of  the 
unreliability  of  the  gospel-record.  For,  I  take 
it,  that  the  two  facts  already  noted,  first,  the 
prolonged  oral  transmission  of  the  tradition 
prior  to  its  committal  to  writing,  and  second, 
the  lack  on  the  part  of  Jesus'  followers  of  such 
safeguards  as  were  employed  by  the  early 
Aryans  for  the  accurate  preservation  of  their 
sacred  books,  to  guarantee  correct  transmission 
of  their  Master's  message,  these  facts  cannot 
but  have  roused  suspicion  as  to  the  reliability 
of  the  gospel-record.  And  our  sense  of  distrust 
deepens  when  we  recall  what  occurred  in  the 
process  of  successive  copyings  of  the  original 
record,  not  to  mention  the  translation  from  Ara- 

38 


RELIABILITY   OF   THE   RECORD 

maic  into  Greek  when  this  was  called  for.  Even 
the  best-intentioned  scribes  made  mistakes. 
One  has  only  to  attempt  the  copying  of  a  modern 
manuscript  to  realize  what  the  chances  of  error 
in  the  transcription  are.  Even  so  careful  and 
painstaking  a  copyist  as  Tischendorf  discovered 
he  had  made  a  number  of  mistakes  when  he 
compared  his  copy  of  certain  leaves  of  the  Si- 
naitic  manuscript  with  the  original.  And  the 
scribes  who  wrote  that  manuscript  were  consid- 
erably more  handicapped  than  is  the  copyist  of  a 
modern  manuscript.  For,  as  I  observed  in  my 
recent  inspection  and  study  of  the  "Codex  Si- 
naiticus"  in  the  imperial  library  of  St.  Peters- 
burg, the  oldest  extant  manuscript  of  the  New 
Testament,  there  is  no  spacing  either  between 
the  words  of  a  sentence,  or  between  the  sen- 
tences; no  division  of  the  text  into  verses  or 
paragraphs,  simply  a  continuous  stream  of 
letters,  with  frequent  contractions  of  words,  mak- 
ing accurate  transcription  all  the  more  difficult. 
Add  to  accidental  errors  of  the  copyist 
changes  or  additions  intentionally  introduced 
into  the  text  (for  reasons  we  cannot  now  dis- 
cuss) and  the  doubt  with  which  our  study  began 
deepens  still  more.  The  margin  of  the  Revised 
Version  of  the  New  Testament  supplies  the 

39 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

reader  witli  a  goodly  number  of  such  intentional 
additions  to  the  record.  Occasionally  the  in- 
sertions were  on  a  very  liberal  scale;  witness 
the  section,  John  7:53-8:11;  the  "appendix" 
to  the  Gospel  of  Mark  (16:9-20);  the  "dox- 
ology"  at  the  close  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  (Matt. 
6:13) ;  the  words  of  Jesus  on  the  cross,  as  re- 
ported in  Luke's  gospel  (23:35).  And  when, 
in  addition  to  these  causes  of  misgiving  as 
to  the  reliability  of  the  record,  we  learn  that 
in  the  three  thousand  extant  manuscripts  of  the 
New  Testament  there  are  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  cases  of  variation  in  the  text,  we  in- 
stinctively grow  alarmed  and  feel  that  the  last 
thread  in  our  cord  of  confidence  has  been  broken. 
But  it  behooves  us  to  beware  of  misconstruing 
the  significance  of  these  disquieting  dis- 
coveries. Consider,  for  example,  these  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  variants  in  three  thousand 
manuscripts.  Taken  at  its  face  value  the  fact 
of  these  differences  tends,  not  merely  to  shake, 
but  positively  to  shatter  our  confidence  in  the 
record.  But,  when  we  come  to  closer  quarters 
with  it,  we  find  that  this  immense  number  of 
variants  is  largely  due  to  the  difficulty  of  copy- 
ing an  entire  manuscript  without  blunders. 
Hence  the  cases  of  really  vital  variation  are 

40 


EELIABILITY   OF   THE   RECORD 

comparatively  few.  It  has  been  suggested  that 
it  would  be  an  immense  advantage  had  we  only 
one  manuscript  of  the  New  Testament  to  con- 
sult; but  the  truth  is  that,  far  from  being  a 
boon,  it  would  be  most  unfortunate  and  deplor- 
able to  be  thus  restricted.  For  no  matter  which 
the  sole  manuscript  in  our  possession  be,  we 
are  certain  it  contains  errors,  and  we  should  be 
totally  at  a  loss  to  determine  where  they  are 
had  we  only  this  one  text.  Given  a  large 
number  of  manuscripts  and  we  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  locate  scribal  errors.  For  many  of 
the  transcripts  will  be  right  where  one  is 
wrong,  simply  because  it  very  rarely  happens 
that  two  or  more  scribes  make  precisely  the 
same  mistake  in  their  copying.  Let  me  take  an 
old  illustration  to  make  this  truth  clear.  Sup- 
pose we  have  one  hundred  manuscripts  of  the 
Gospel  of  Mark,  each  written  independently  of 
the  other.  Suppose  each  manuscript  has  ten  ac- 
cidental blunders,  and  hence  diiferent  in  each 
copy.  If,  now,  we  consult  only  one  manuscript, 
we  shall  have  a  text  with  ten  unknown  errors 
in  it.  Take  a  second  manuscript  and  we  have 
twenty  various  readings  in  all,  the  true  read- 
ing being  in  one  or  the  other.  Take  a  third 
manuscript,  and  we  have  thirty  various  read- 

41 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

ings.  But  the  probability  is  that  two  of  these 
manuscripts  will  agree  as  against  the  third. 
Take  a  hundred  manuscripts,  and  we  have  a 
thousand  various  readings.  Yet,  in  the  case 
of  any  one  passage,  ninety-nine  will  have  the 
same  reading  and  the  variation  visible  in  the 
hundredth  will  be  a  blunder.  Hence  the  posses- 
sion of  a  large  number  of  manuscripts  is  a  de- 
cided advantage.  Nay  more,  our  waning  con- 
fidence in  the  record  begins  to  regain  its 
strength  when  we  apply  this  illustration  to  the 
texts  of  the  New  Testament.  Thanks  to  the 
labors  of  Professors  Westcott  and  Hort  and 
the  late  lamented  von  Soden— scholars  who 
have  specialized  in  this  field  of  investigation — 
we  now  know  that  seven-eighths  of  the  total 
various  readings  are  of  altogether  minor  impor- 
tance, having  only  orthographic  or  verbal 
significance,  while  but  one-eighth  concerns  dif- 
ferences of  real  importance,  involving  some 
forty  passages  in  all.  Commenting  upon  the 
ratio  of  these  variants  to  the  rest  of  the  text, 
Dr.  Hort  remarked  that,  if  we  imagine  the  New 
Testament  to  consist  of  five  hundred  pages,  the 
various  readings  that  relate  to  points  of  vital 
consequence  would  occupy  not  more  than  half 
a  page. 

42 


RELIABILITY   OF   THE   RECORD 

First,  then,  among  the  sources  calculated  to 
inspire  confidence  in  the  gospel-record  is  this 
remarkable  result  of  the  comparative  study  of 
extant  manuscripts. 

It  strengthens  our  confidence  still  more  when 
we  find  words  and  phrases  preserved  in  the  ver- 
nacular of  Palestine,  the  Aramaic  of  Jesus'  day, 
expressions  that  could  not  have  been  invented 
by  Greek-speaking  writers  but  were  trans- 
mitted direct  and  unaltered  from  the  living 
memory  of  disciples.  Recall,  for  instance,* 
Raca,  "thou  empty-headed  one";  Mammon, 
"wealth";  Talitha  cumi,  "maiden  arise";  Ahha, 
"father";  Eli,  Eli,  lama  sahachthdni,  "my  God, 
my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  f '  Aramaic 
scholars  tell  us  that  the  names  in  the  Gospels 
beginning  with  Bar,  such  as  Barabbas,  Bar- 
Jona,  Bartholomew,  are  all  Aramaic  names. 
Moreover,  it  has  been  observed  that  in  the  Greek 
version  of  the  gospels  there  are  idiomatic  Ara- 
maic phrases,  and  the  fact  that  these  can  be 
translated  back  into  the  original  goes  far  to- 
ward establishing  their  genuineness.  Again,  it 
is  significant  that,  when  Jesus  quoted  from  the 
Old  Testament  "Law  and  Prophets,"  it  was  in- 
variably from  the  Palestinian  Hebrew,  not  the 

» Matt.  5:22;  6:24;  Mark  5:41;  14:36;  Matt.  27:46. 
43 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Alexandrian  Greek  Version,  or  Septiiagint.  If 
any  of  these  quotations  should  agree  with  the 
Greek  version  as  against  the  Hebrew,  suspicion 
would  be  cast  upon  its  genuineness.^  In  the 
synagogue  of  Jesus'  day  the  Hebrew  Old  Testa- 
ment was  read  and  then  paraphrased  in  Ara- 
maic, sentence  by  sentence,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
audience.  The  Septuagint  version,  which  dates 
from  the  year  275  b.c,  found  no  favor  in  Pal- 
estinian circles  where  the  standard  of  canonical 
scriptures  was  stricter  than  at  Alexandria  and 
where  Greek  was  not  the  language  of  the  peo- 
ple. Finding,  then,  that  quoted  sentences  from 
the  Old  Testament  in  the  gospels  have  a  Pales- 
tinian original  gives  additional  strength  to  our 
confidence  in  the  record.  It  is  noteworthy,  too, 
in  this  connection,  that  all  the  characteristic 
ideas  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  are  essentially 
Jewish.  There  is  a  conspicuous  absence  of 
Greek  ideas.  The  Messiah,  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  a  day  of  judgment  followed  by  the  met- 
ing out  of  rewards,  and  punishments — these  are 
quite  foreign  to  Greek  thought.  Were  we  to  find 
any  one  of  them  associated  with  a  Greek  idea, 
it  would  instantly  rouse  suspicion  as  to  its  gen- 
ULueness.  Prof.  Burkitt  cites  an  interesting  ex- 
'  cf.  Luke  22:35-7  with  Hos.  6:6. 


EELIABILITY   OF   THE   RECORD 

ample  of  such  association.  The  saying,  "Lo, 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  in  your  midst,"  ap- 
pears in  a  Greek-Egyptian  fragment,  coupled 
with  the  Delphic  maxim,  "Know  thyself," 
whereas  in  Luke's  gospel  it  stands  in  immediate 
connection  with  the  speedy  coming  of  the  king- 
dom, a  characteristic  Jewish  idea.  And  this  lat- 
ter association  testifies  to  the  genuineness  of 
the  saying  as  against  what  we  read  in  the 
Egyptian  version. 

Again,  when  we  compare  the  three  earliest 
extant  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament  with 
one  another — the  Sinaitic,  the  Vatican  and  the 
Alexandrian,  the  first  two  dating  from  the 
middle  of  the  fourth  century  (350)  and  the 
third  from  the  fifth  century  (450) — we  observe 
a  remarkable  measure  of  agreement  in  their 
readings  throughout.  The  footnotes  to  Tis- 
chendorf's  edition  of  the  New  Testament^  af- 
ford striking  illustration  of  this  general  unity 
of  version  and  it  contributes  in  no  small  degree 
to  our  confidence  in  the  record.  None  of  these 
manuscripts  were  known  to  the  translators  of 
the  King  James,  or  "Authorized"  version  of 
1611 ;  yet  such  was  their  importance  as  a  means 
of  bringing  us  closer  to  the  original  text  that  in 

1  Tauchnitz  Library,  Volume  1,000. 
45 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

1885  a  "Revised"  version  was  published  correct- 
ing many  an  error  by  reference  to  the  readings 
found  in  these  earliest  extant  manuscripts. 

Compare,  further,  the  reading  in  these  with 
what  we  find  in  Papyri  fragments,  also  written 
in  Greek,  but  antedating  them  by  a  hundred 
years,  and  we  see  new  and  striking  resemblan- 
ces that  inspire  still  more  confidence  in  the  re- 
liability of  the  record.  Turn,  for  example,  to 
that  eleventh  leaf  of  a  Greek  papyrus  manu- 
script, discovered  in  1897  at  Oxyrhyncus  (the 
modem  Behnesa.)  A  relic  it  is  of  the  oral 
gospel-tradition  in  its  earliest  written  form. 
This  leaf  contains  the  following  sayings,  or 
"logia,"  of  Jesus,  three  of  which,  it  will  be  ob- 
served, tally  with  what  we  read  in  the  gospels : 

1 and  thou  shalt  see  clearly  to 

cast  out  the  mote  that  is  in  thy  brother's 
eye  (fragmentary). 

2.  Jesus  saith.  Except  ye  fast  to  the  world, 
ye  shall  in  nowise  find  the  kingdom  of 
God ;  and  except  ye  keep  the  Sabbath,  ye 
shall  not  see  the  Father. 

3.  Jesus  saith,  I  stood  in  the  midst  of  the 
world,  and  in  the  flesh  was  I  seen  of  them, 
and  I  found  all  men  drunken,  and  none 

46 


RELIABILITY   OF   THE   RECORD 

found  I  athirst  among  them,  and  my  soul 
grieveth  over  the  sons  of  men,  because 

they  are  blind  in  their  heart 

(fragmentary). 
4 poverty (fragmentary). 

5.  Jesus  saith,  Wherever  there  are and 

there  is  one  alone,  I  am  with  him.  Raise 
the  stone,  and  there  thou  shalt  find  me, 
cleave  the  wood,  and  there  am  I  (fragmen- 
tary). 

6.  Jesus  saith,  A  prophet  is  not  acceptable 
in  his  own  country,  neither  doth  a  physi- 
cian work  cures  upon  them  that  know  him, 

7.  Jesus  saith,  a  city  built  upon  the  top  of  a 
high  hill  and  stablished,  can  neither  fall 
nor  be  hid. 

8.  Hearest  with  one  ear 

The  first  of  these  has  its  exact  parallel  in 
Luke  6:42.  The  first  half  of  the  sixth  has  its 
equivalent  in  Luke  4:24.  The  seventh  is  quite 
like  what  we  read  in  Matt.  5 :14.  The  remain- 
ing five  represent  additions  to  the  synoptic 
tradition,  taking  their  place  in  the  same  class 
as  that  saying  quoted  by  the  apostle  Paul,  to 
which  reference  has  already  been  made.  The 
second  of  these  "logia"  (and  they  are  not  to  be 

47 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

confused  with  those  referred  to  by  Papias  which 
were  written  in  Aramaic)  is  a  supplement  to  the 
injunctions  recorded  in  Matt.  6 :16-18  and  9 :14, 
15.  The  third  expresses  that  sorrow,  which  from 
gospel-sources  we  learn,  Jesus  felt  on  finding 
Pharisees  unresponsive  to  his  teaching.  The 
fifth  reminds  us  of  the  omnipresent  Logos- 
Jesus  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  of  its  mys- 
ticism. The  eighth  provokes  comparison  with 
Mark  7:16;  of  which  it  may  have  been  a  varia- 
tion. In  so  far,  then,  as  we  find  in  this  papyrus 
fragment — older  by  a  century  than  our  oldest 
extant  New  Testament  manuscript — phrases 
and  sentences  that  parallel  what  we  read  in  the 
gospels,  they  serve  as  a  further  justification  of 
our  confidence  in  the  genuineness  of  the  record. 
Some  fifty  years  before  these  "logia"  were 
written,  an  unknown  representative  of  the 
early  Christian  Church  prepared  a  document 
known  as  the  "Didache"  or  "Teaching  of  the 
Twelve  Apostles."  The  original  document,  long 
since  lost,  was  written  about  the  year  150,  the 
approximate  date  for  the  latest  of  the  New 
Testament  books.  It  was,  moreover,  cited  by 
Clement  of  Alexandria  as  "scripture,"  i.  e.  he 
quoted  from  the  Didache  as  he  did  from  the 
gospels;  in  his  time  and  place  the  work  had 

48 


EELIABILITY   OF   THE   KECORD 

canonical  authority,  appearing  as  part  of  the 
New  Testament  along  with  the  Epistle  of  Bar- 
nabas and  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas.  In  1884 
Bryennios,  Metropolitan  of  Serrae  in  Mesopota- 
mia, while  browsing  in  the  library  of  a  monas- 
tery near  Constantinople,  discovered  a  copy  of 
this  document  written  in  1056  by  one  who  signed 
himself,  Leon,  notary  and  sinner.  Our  interest 
in  the  Didache  centers  upon  its  first  six  sections 
which  contain  sentences  that  appear  in  the  gos- 
pels but  not  from  the  gospels.  No  one  can  read 
these  passages  without  seeing  their  value  as  at- 
testations to  the  genuineness  of  the  originals. 
'And  the  Didache  antedates  the  Sinaitic  manu- 
script by  two  hundred  years. 

Contemporary  with  the  publication  of  the 
Didache,  possibly  preceding  it  by  a  decade  or 
two,  was  the  appearance  of  the  "Old  Latin"  and 
the  "Syriac"  versions  of  the  New  Testament. 
Tertullian,  of  Carthage,  made  mention  and  use 
of  this  Old  Latin  translation  from  the  Greek,  cit- 
ing it  in  one  of  his  "Defences"  of  Christianity, 
written  about  the  year  180.  The  Syriac  Version 
is  best  known  to  us  through  the  "Diatesseron," 
or  Harmony  of  the  Gospels,  prepared  by  Tatian, 
a  Mesopotamian  convert  to  Christianity  resid- 
ing in  Rome  while  Tertullian  was  in  Carthage. 

49 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Comparing  these  ancient  versions  with  our  old- 
est extant  New  Testament  manuscript,  we  note 
anew  the  agreement  so  impressive  in  previous 
comparative  studies  and  we  recognize  therein 
another  link  in  the  chain  of  reasons  for  believ- 
ing in  the  reliability  of  the  gospel-record. 

Carrying  our  series  of  observations  further 
back  still,  we  enter  the  first  century  of  our  era 
to  which  the  Christian  Fathers,  Justin,  Papias, 
Polycarp,  Ignatius  and  Clement  belong.  All 
were  born  prior  to  the  year  100  a.d.  and 
lived  in  widely  separated  parts  of  Christendom 
— Justin  at  Rome,  Papias  in  Phrygia,  Polycarp 
at  Smyrna,  Ignatius  at  Antioch,  Clement  at 
Rome.  All  alike  devoted  themselves  to  the 
pressing  task  of  defending  the  new  religion 
against  the  attacks  of  Jewish  and  Gentile  an- 
tagonists. To  this  end  they  quoted  freely  and 
frequently  the  teachings  of  Jesus  and  from 
manuscripts  older  than  any  documents  to  which 
we  have  referred.  Now  when  we  compare  their 
quotations,  as  they  appear  in  the  "Apologia," 
"Letters,"  and  other  books  that  have  come  down 
to  us,  with  what  we  read  in  our  "Authorized" 
version  of  the  New  Testament,  or  better  still, 
with  the  corresponding  passages  in  the  Sinai- 
tic  and  Vatican  manuscripts,  the  measure  of 

50 


EELIABILITY   OF   THE   RECORD 

agreement  observed  is  such  as  to  give  us  still 
more  reason  for  belief  in  the  reliability  of  the 
record. 

Finally,  mention  must  be  made  of  the  liturgi- 
cal books  or  "Lectionaries,"  prepared  for  use 
at  the  services  of  Christian  churches  in  the  first 
century.  These  service-books  contain  many 
quotations  from  the  New  Testament;  some,  for 
instance,  pertaining  to  the  celebration  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  others  to  the  baptismal  cere- 
mony. Over  one  thousand  manuscripts  of  these 
"Lectionaries"  are  known  to  exist.  Hitherto, 
however,  they  have  been  but  partially  ex- 
amined ;  yet  so  far  has  investigation  proceeded 
as  to  reveal  remarkable  resemblance  between 
the  quoted  passages  and  the  New  Testament 
text  with  which  we  are  familiar. 

Such,  then,  in  brief,  bare  outline,  is  the  cumu- 
lative argument  in  support  of  the  reliability  of 
the  gospel-record.  And  the  ultimate  conclusion 
to  which  we  are  brought  is  that  while  we  cannot 
tell  with  absolute  certainty  that  Jesus  spoke  a 
single  sentence  in  the  exact  form  in  which  it 
has  come  down  to  us,  nor  that  he  did  a  single 
thing  in  precisely  the  way  in  which  it  has  been 
narrated,  yet  in  the  light  of  the  reasons  ad- 
duced, we  are  warranted  in  believing  that  we 

51 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

have  approximately  the  apostolic  originals. 
Moreover,  while  the  Synoptics  are  like  palimp- 
sests, in  which  the  original  record  of  sayings 
and  doings  of  Jesus  has  been  often  obscured  by 
what  has  been  written  over  it,  yet  we  can  pene- 
trate beneath  this  exterior  to  the  real  Jesus  and 
his  message.  And  in  the  transmitted  record 
generation  after  generation  will  find  fuel  for 
their  altar-fires,  available  throughout  all  time. 


Ill 

PEOM    THE    CRUCIFIXION    OF    JESUS   TO   THE 
CONVERSION   OF   PAUL 

It  is  quite  clear  from  a  study  of  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  that  Jesus  had  no  thought  of  institut- 
ing a  new  religion  or  of  establishing  a  church. 
One  passage,  however,  there  is,  which  seems  to 
contradict  this  conclusion.  It  is  the  famous 
passage  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Matthew's 
gospel  which  reads  as  follows :  "Thou  art  Peter 
and  upon  this  rock  will  I  build  my  church  and 
the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it. 
And  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind 
upon  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven  and  what- 
soever thou  shalt  loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed 
in  heaven." 

Is  this  a  genuine  utterance  of  Jesus,  or  must 
it  be  discredited?  We  may  sum  up  the  argu- 
ment against  its  genuineness  under  the  follow- 

5  53 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

ing  heads:  (1)  The  passage  appears  not  in  the 
Synoptics  but  only  in  the  gospel  of  Matthew; 
and  this  one,  more  than  either  of  the  others, 
reflects  the  conditions  of  a  later  day.*  (2)  The 
surname  "Peter"  was  conferred  upon  Simon 
quite  early  in  Jesus'  ministry,  according  to 
Mark's  gospel.^  (3)  The  prerogative  here  be- 
stowed upon  Peter  is  abrogated  in  the  next 
chapter,  i.  e.,  all  twelve  of  the  disciples  are 
given  authority  "to  bind  and  to  loose" — albeit 
the  very  idea  of  a  non-forgiveness  and  a  for- 
giveness of  sins  is  impossible  in  the  mouth  of 
Jesus.  (4)  The  conferring  of  such  honors  upon 
Peter  is  wholly  inconsistent  with  the  title  "Sa- 
tan" which  Jesus  gives  him  in  the  next  breath. 
(5)  Peter  was,  in  reality,  much  more  like  a  reed 
than  a  rock — witness,  for  instance,  his  denial  of 
Jesus  in  the  hour  of  his  trial  and  his  desertion 
of  the  Gentile  cause  at  Antioch.^  (6)  Paul 
would  not  have  dared  to  "withstand  Peter  to 
the  face"  had  such  an  exalted  position  ever 
been  given  him  by  Jesus.  (7)  The  use  of  the 
term  church,  in  the  specific  sense  in  which  it  is 
here  employed,  is  a  clear  instance  of  anach- 

» See  especially  18:15-17  which  points  clearly  to  the  exist- 
ence of  an  ecclesiastical  hierarchy. 

»3:16.     » Gal.  2:12. 

54 


FROM   JESUS   TO   PAUL 

ronism  if  we  assume  this  passage  to  have  been 
an  utterance  of  Jesus. 

For,  the  Christian  Church,  or  "ecclesia,"  was 
not  even  thought  of  until  the  conception  of  the 
neiu  "chosen  people"  had  taken  hold  of  the 
apostle  Paul.  Jesus,  as  a  Jew,  could  have  used 
the  term  church  only  in  that  generic  sense  famil- 
iar to  all  adherents  of  Judaism,  the  equivalent 
of  the  Hebrew  Kahal,  the  whole  congregation  of 
Israel,  as  the  people  of  God.  But  in  the  six- 
teenth and  eighteenth  chapters  of  Matthew's 
gospel  the  word  church  is  used  to  designate  the 
new  people  of  God,  the  Christian  society  as  a 
corporate  whole,  equated  with  the  kingdom  of 
God  which  Jesus  had  come  to  establish.  We  see 
the  same  use  of  the  term  in  the  Book  of  Acts 
(5:11),  signifying  the  whole  body  of  believers 
as  contrasted  with  other  residents  of  Jerusalem. 
So,  also,  Paul,  in  his  first  letter  to  the  Corin- 
thians (12:28),  refers  to  the  Church  of  God  as 
contrasted  with  Jews  and  Greeks.  For  him  the 
church  was  the  new  chosen  people,  Jews  and 
Gentiles  being  merged  in  it  as  parts  of  "the 
body  of  Christ" — a  synonym  for  "church."  Not 
until  Paul  had  broken  with  Judaism  and 
launched  his  new  theory  of  salvation  as  the 
kernel  of  a  new  religion  did  the  word  church 

55 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

take  on  the  special  signification  suggested  in 
the  Matthean  passage,  a  meaning  wholly  for- 
eign to  the  thought  and  attitude  of  Jesus. 
(8)  The  earliest  known  reference  to  this  pas- 
sage is  surprisingly  late.  We  find  it  in  a  letter 
written  by  Victor,  bishop  of  Rome,  about  the 
year  200.  (9)  The  crucial  verse,  which  reports 
the  conferring  of  unique  authority  upon  Peter 
is  wanting  in  Tatian's  "Diatessaron,"  or  "Har- 
mony of  the  Gospels,"  compiled  about  the  year 
170.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  it  could 
have  been  omitted  had  it  then  existed. 

We,  therefore,  conclude  that  the  three  verses, 
constituting  the  disputed  passage,  were  incor- 
porated in  Matthew's  gospel  in  the  second  cen- 
tury when  the  growing  pretensions  of  the  bishop 
at  Rome  sought  the  sanction  of  Jesus. 

Not  only  is  it  quite  clear  that  Jesus  lived  and 
died  a  Jew,  with  no  thought  whatever  of  sub- 
stituting a  new  religion  for  Judaism,  but  it  is 
also  clear  that  if  his  disciples  had  not  recov- 
ered from  the  shock  of  his  arrest,  trial  and  cruci- 
fixion and  from  the  consequent  sense  of  disap- 
pointment and  despair  which  that  tragedy  en- 
gendered, Christianity,  as  a  religion  rooted  in 
the  Christ  idea,  would  not  have  sprung  into  ex- 
istence.   Hence  the  real  starting-point  for  our 

56 


PROM   JESUS   TO    PAUL 

inquiry  into  the  beginnings  of  Christianity  is  the 
garden  of  Gethsemane,  from  which  the  disciples 
fled  in  terror  when  their  Master  was  betrayed 
and  arrested.  It  is  noteworthy,  in  passing,  that 
both  the  Matthean  and  Markan  gospels  contain 
the  statement  "they  all  fled."  The  Lucan  gos- 
pel, representing  a  later  tradition,  makes  the 
disciples  stay  in  Jerusalem  and  there  await 
Pentecost.  The  probable  motive  behind  this  ac- 
count of  what  transpired  was  the  author's  wish 
to  exonerate  the  disciples  from  the  charge  of 
cowardice  involved  in  the  report  of  the  earlier 
narratives. 

Under  the  crushing  blow  of  the  fateful  cul- 
mination of  their  Master's  ministry,  the  dis- 
ciples lost  courage  and  self-command ;  they  wav- 
ered in  their  faith  and  fled  in  fear  to  their 
Galilean  home.^  Perhaps  their  first  impulse 
was  to  resume  their  fishing  and  other  former 
pursuits  and  live  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus'  teach- 
ing. Or,  for  aught  we  know,  their  thought  may 
have  been  to  retire  to  some  secluded  spot,  far 
from  the  madding  crowd,  and  there  cultivate 
the  religious  life,  sheltered  from  the  world's 

»We  infer  Galilean  from  the  accounts  of  both  Matthew 
and  Mark  according  to  which  Jesus  declares  he  will  reappear 
in  Galilee.    Matt.  27:55;  Mark  16:7;  Acta  2:7. 

57 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHBISTIANITY 

temptations,  in  order  that  when  He  came  down 
from  heaven  the  Son  of  Man  would,  at  least  here, 
find  faith  on  the  earth.  But  they  did  neither  of 
these  things  and,  for  the  adequate  reason  that 
their  faith  and  courage  came  back  to  them.  Let 
us  endeavor  to  trace  the  probable  steps  of  this 
recovery.*  First  came  the  precious  recollec- 
tions, the  blessed  memories  of  those  eighteen 
months  spent  here  in  the  inspiring  company  of 
their  Master.  Here  it  was  that  he  had  called 
them  to  his  ministry.  Here  they  had  walked  and 
conversed  with  him,  here  they  had  heard  the 
gospel  and  seen  the  wondrous  healings  of  dis- 
ordered souls.  Out  of  these  treasured  reminis- 
cences there  rose  the  conviction  that  Jesus  could 
not  be  in  Sheol  with  all  the  rest  of  the  dead. 
Had  not  Moses  and  Elijah  and  Enoch  been 
translated  to  heaven?  Had  not  the  psalmist 
written,  "Thou  wilt  not  suffer  thy  Holy  One  to 
see  corruption"?  Surely,  then,  he  who  was 
greater  than  any  of  these  must  have  somehow 
escaped  from  Sheol.  Following  close  upon  this 
<!onviction  came  the  vision  of  Jesus  to  Peter, 
whose  neurotic,  mercurial,  impulsive,  excitable 

» For  a  fuller  discussion  of  this  see  the  author's  chapter  on 
"The  Resurrection"  in  "The  Life  of  Jesus  in  the  Light  of 
the  Higher  Criticism." 

58 


FROM   JESUS   TO   PAUL 

nature  made  him  peculiarly  susceptible  to  such 
a  psychic  experience.  And  he  had  only  to  say 
he  had  seen  Jesus  for  the  statement  to  work 
magnetically  and  contagiously  upon  the  other 
disciples.  Given,  then,  the  reminiscences  of 
their  life  with  Jesus  in  Galilee,  the  consequent 
conviction  that  such  an  Holy  One  could  not  stay 
permanently  in  the  realm  of  shades;  given  the 
belief  of  Peter  that  he  had  actually  seen  Jesus ; 
given,  also,  the  contagious  effect  of  his  ecstatic 
experience  upon  his  fellow-disciples,  and  the 
conditions  are  provided  for  a  transformation  of 
cowards  into  heroes,  of  renegades  into  apostles. 
True,  they  had  slept  in  Gethsemane  while  their 
Master  prayed ;  now  they  were  awake  to  the  call 
of  the  hour.  They  had  been  dull  of  understand- 
ing indeed ;  now  they  were  clear  both  as  to  their 
spiritual  inheritance  and  the  duty  it  imposed  on 
them.  Well  might  they  recall  the  words  with 
which  Jesus  had  summoned  them  to  missionary 
work :  "What  I  tell  you  in  private  declare  ye  in 
public.  Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world.  Men  do 
not  light  a  lamp  and  put  it  under  a  bushel,  but 
on  a  lamp-stand  so  that  it  may  give  light  to  all 
that  are  in  the  house.  Even  so  let  your  light 
shine  among  men."  *     Here,  then,  in  this  re- 

'Matt.  5:14,  15. 

59 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

vival  of  courage  and  faith  in  the  hearts  of  the 
despondent  and  despairing  disciples,  is  the  real 
starting-point  back  to  which  the  rise  of  the 
Christian  Church  may  be  traced.  Christianity 
dawned  with  the  return  of  the  transformed  dis- 
ciples from  Galilee  to  Jerusalem  to  prepare  for 
the  reappearance  of  Jesus  from  heaven  as  the 
Messiah  and  for  the  judgment  that  would  fol- 
low. Of  the  day  and  the  hour  of  his  coming 
knew  no  one,  not  even  the  angels.  But  that  it 
would  be  very  soon  and  in  the  generation  to 
which  Jesus  himself  belonged,  all  alike  believed. 
Nothing  indeed  had  been  so  persistently 
affirmed  as  this  expectation. 

Accompanying  the  eleven*  from  Galilee  to 
Jerusalem  were  certain  women,  Mary  the  mother 
of  Jesus  and  his  four  brothers  (  Joses,  James, 
Judge  and  Simon). ^  Unknown  others  joined 
this  group,  so  that  the  number  was  increased  to 

^They  are  spoken  of  as  "disciples"  and  as  "apostles." 
A  disciple  is  one  who  learns,  as  opposed  to  one  who  teaches 
(rabbi).  An  apostle  is  one  sent  forth  to  teach,  a  delegate  of 
the  person  who  sends  him.  "Apostle"  was  the  title  Jesus  con- 
ferred on  his  twelve  disciples  when  he  sent  them  forth,  on 
a  certain  occasion,  to  preach  and  to  heal.  But  the  title  soon 
became  a  customary  designation  and  is  so  used  in  various 
parts  of  the  New  Testament,  e.g.  Luke  17:5;  24:10;  Acts  1:2. 

«Actsl:2-14;cf.  Matt.  13:55 


FROM   JESUS   TO   PAUL 

one  hundred  and  twenty.*  Remember  now  that 
all  these  persons  were  Jews;  all  were  devoted 
to  the  religion  of  Moses  and  the  Prophets,  even 
as  Jesus  himself  had  been.  And  the  one  char- 
acteristic which  differentiated  these  persons 
from  the  rest  of  their  fellow-Jews  was  their 
belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  and  that  he 
would  soon  return  to  fulfil  the  function  of  this 
office.  All  other  Jews  simply  believed  in  the 
Messiah  and  his  coming,  but  denied  that  Jesus 
was  he. 

Assembled  in  an  upper  room  of  the  city,  the 
first  order  of  business  was  the  election  of  a  sub- 
stitute for  Judas,  so  that  the  original  number 
of  disciples  might  be  maintained.  Scripture, 
indeed,  seemed  to  call  for  the  restoration  of  this 
number,  witness  Peter's  quoting  of  passages 
from  the  Psalms  (Ps.  69:25;  109:8),  passages 
which  he  construed  as  intimating  that  the 
treachery  of  Judas  had  been  foretold  and  that 
someone  should  take  his  place.  Incidentally  it 
may  be  remarked  that  the  context  of  these  pas- 
sages gives  no  warrant  for  Peter's  interpreta- 
tion of  them.  The  probable  explanation  of  the 
desire  to  restore  the  original  number  of  dis- 
ciples is  the  fact  that  twelve  was  looked  upon 

1  Acts  1:15. 

61 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

as  a  number  having  sacred  completeness.  Were 
there  not  twelve  tribes  of  Israel  and  twelve 
thrones  in  heaven  for  the  twelve  apostles? 
Therefore,  Judas*  place  must  be  filled  in  the 
company  of  disciples  and  the  number  twelve 
restored.  Note  the  thoroughly  democratic  char- 
acter of  this  election.  There  was  no  hierarchy, 
not  even  a  hint  of  one.  Peter  simply  acts  as 
spokesman  of  the  group,  proposing  that  all  men 
present  who  had  known  Jesus  from  the  day  of 
his  baptism  to  that  of  his  death  should  be  re- 
garded eligible  for  the  position  made  vacant  by 
the  death  of  Judas.  To  this  proposition,  all 
present  assenting,  they  proceeded  with  the  elec- 
tion— the  women,  it  would  seem,  treated  on 
equal  terms  with  the  men.  Nominations  being 
in  order,  Joseph  Justus  and  Matthias  were 
named  as  candidates.  Then,  following  prayer 
for  Divine  guidance  in  the  choosing  of  one  of 
these  nominees,  lots  were  cast  and  Matthias  was 
duly  declared  the  choice  of  the  assembly  and  of 
God  who  presided  over  the  casting  of  the  lots. 
Contrast  the  simplicity,  democracy  and  ethical- 
ity  of  this  election  with  the  practices  of  later 
ecclesiasticism  in  the  election  of  popes  and  the 
appointment  of  cardinals.* 
1  See  Dean  Stanley:  "Christian  Institutions." 
62 


FROM   JESUS   TO   PAUL 

The  author  of  the  opening  chapters  of  the 
Book  of  Acts  regarded  this  reorganization,  or 
completing  of  the  group  of  disciples,  as  the  be- 
ginning of  a  new  era.    Accordingly,  he  believed 
it  was  ushered  in  on  the  morning  of  the  day  of 
Pentecost,  the  Jewish  festival  which  commemo- 
rated the  giving  of  the  Law  on  Mt.  Sinai  and 
which  was  celebrated  on  the  fiftieth  day  after 
the  offering  of  the  barley-sheaf  in  Passover 
week.i      Then  it  was   that  the   twelve,  while 
"assembled  for  supplication  and  prayer,"  were 
suddenly  startled  by  the  sound  as  of  a  mighty 
rushing  wind  and  the   appearance   of   cloven 
tongues  of  fire,  which  forthwith  sat  upon  each 
of  the  twelve,  so  that  all  were  filled  with  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  began  to  talk  foreign  languages 
understood  by  the  foreigners   then  living  in 
Jerusalem,     who     promptly    interpreted    the 
strange  utterances  as  evidence  of  intoxication. 
But  Peter  refutes  the  explanation,  reminding 
them  that  it  was  only  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning 
and  that  consequently  these  apostles  could  not 
be  drunken.     No,  he  continued,  these  are  but 
fulfilling  what  was  prophesied  by  Joel  three  cen- 
turies before,  namely,  that  the  time  was  coming 
when  God  would  pour  out  his  spirit  and  men 

1  Jubilees  6;  Ex.  23. 

63 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

would  utter  predictions  and  see  visions  and  God 
would  show  wonders  in  fire  and  vapor  and  who- 
soever in  that  day  should  call  upon  the  name  of 
the  Lord  the  same  would  be  saved.^  Such,  in 
brief  outline,  is  the  story  recorded  in  the  second 
chapter  of  the  Book  of  Acts.  Evidently  the  au- 
thor believed  that  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  the 
apostles  were  endowed  with  power  to  speak  for- 
eign languages.  But  not  only  is  this  most  im- 
probable, but  nowhere  else  in  the  New  Testament 
is  there  a  hint  of  such  power.  Paul  certainly  did 
not  have  it  and  no  one  needed  it  more  than  he. 
But  Paul  did  have  what  he  called  "the  gift  of 
tongues,"  possessed  also  by  many  others  and 
regarded  by  all  as  a  token  of  the  presence  and 
influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  In  the  fourteenth 
chapter  of  his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians, 
Paul  refers  to  this  gift  of  speaking  an  unknown 
tongue,  intelligible  only  to  God;  a  form  of 
ecstatic  speech,  uttered  in  a  trance-state  and 
requiring  interpretation  in  order  to  be  made 
edifying  to  the  listeners.  It  was  a  sign  that  the 
spirit  of  the  risen  and  ascended  Christ  had  made 
itself  manifest  in  the  possessor  of  the  gift.  It 
was  a  spontaneous  ejaculation  of  incoherent 
words  and  sounds,  natural  to  those  who  had 

» Joel  3. 

B4 


FROM   JESUS   TO   PAUL 

come  into  possession  of  a  new  and  redeeming 
religion.  A  ''charisma"  or  gift  it  was,  like  heal- 
ing, prophesying  and  preaching,  to  be  used  for 
edification  through  the  aid  of  an  interpreter. 
But  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Acts,  writing 
some  fifty  years  after  Paul's  time,  misunder- 
stood Paul's  conception  of  this  charisma  and 
construed  "speaking  with  tongues"  to  mean 
"talking  foreign  languages,"  whereas  to  Paul  it 
meant  one  of  the  mysterious  operations  of  God, 
intelligible  to  Him  alone  and  intended  only  for 
Him. 

So  impressed  were  the  bystanders  by  this 
charismatic  manifestation  and  by  the  speech  of 
Peter  which  followed  it  that,  according  to  our 
author,  about  three  thousand  persons  were  add- 
ed to  the  one  hundred  and  twenty  who  formed 
the  original  Jerusalem  group  of  believers  in 
the  Messiahship  and  speedy  return  of  Jesus. 

And  now  begins  the  work  of  systematic 
preaching  to  the  Jews,  not,  however,  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  with  its  stress  on  the  morality  of  the 
spirit,  not  the  parables  and  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  but  the  belief  that  Jesus  is  the  Messiah 
and  that  he  will  speedily  appear  to  fulfil  the 
function  of  Messiah  as  inaugurator  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth.    No,  the  work  of  the 

65 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

disciples  was  not  a  continuation  of  the  gospel 
of  Jesus;  rather  was  it  a  reproduction  of  the 
work  of  the  Baptist.  For,  like  John,  the 
disciples  stressed  the  coming  of  Messiah  as  near 
at  hand  and  they  adopted  baptism  as  a  symbol  of 
purification  and  preparedness  for  entrance  in- 
to the  kingdom.  A  baptism  of  repentance  it 
was,  like  John's,  and  preceded  by  a  confes- 
sion of  sins,  securing  to  each  penitent  for- 
giveness and  also  immunity  from  the  terror 
of  the  impending  Messianic  judgment.  The 
simple,  practical,  ethical  gospel  of  Jesus,  far 
from  being  preached  and  enlarged  upon  by  his 
disciples,  was  replaced  by  a  world-Messianic 
gospel,  the  preaching  of  belief  in  Jesus  as 
the  Messiah  and  the  necessity  of  being  pre- 
pared to  enter  the  kingdom  and  escape  "the 
wrath  to  come."  Note  that  this  preaching  cam- 
paign began  very  quietly.  For,  we  cannot 
imagine  the  Governor  of  Judea  allowing  a 
movement — directly  related  to  one  who  had 
been  judged  a  revolutionary  criminal  and,  as 
such,  had  just  been  executed — to  develop  and 
make  converts  by  the  thousand.^  We,  there- 
fore, conclude  that  our  author  has  somewhat 
idealized   the   facts   and   exaggerated   the   in- 

» Acts  2:41;  cf.  4:4. 

ee 


FROM  JESUS   TO  PAUE 

cipient  success  of  the  new  movement.  Note 
also  that  this  preaching  was  tolerated  by  non- 
sympathizing  Jews  only  because  they  observed 
that  the  apostles  obeyed  the  Law,  attended  the 
temple-services  and  led  pious  lives.  Nay  more, 
they  had  given  undeniable  evidence  of  healing 
power,  especially  Peter  and  John.  What  gave 
offence  to  the  orthodox  Jews  was  the  substance 
of  this  apostolic  preaching — the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  from  Sheol,  his  ascension  into  heaven 
and  his  expected  return  as  the  Messiah.  These 
beliefs  formed  the  essential  content  of  Peter's 
initial  speech  in  which  he  called  on  the  Jews  to 
repent  of  their  rejection  of  Jesus  because  he  is 
the  Messiah,  proved  to  be  such  by  his  resurrec- 
tion, by  the  descent  of  his  spirit  upon  the  apos- 
tles as  well  as  by  predictions  in  the  writings  of 
the  Prophets.  In  the  second  speech  attributed 
to  Peter  he  told  his  hearers  how  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus  had  been  foretold  and  quoted  for  them 
the  statement  of  Moses  that  in  the  latter  days 
"a  prophet  will  appear  whom  the  people  should 
hear,"  adding  that  Jesus  was  this  predicted 
prophet.  Let  Israel,  therefore,  repent,  accept 
Jesus  as  the  Christ  and  so  receive  the  promises 
of  God.  Thus  the  religious  position  of  the  apos- 
tles was  definite  and  clear-cut.    They  grafted 

67 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

the  belief  in  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  and  his 
return  as  Messiah  on  their  Jewish  theology. 
The  slogan  of  the  group  was  Maranatha,  "The 
Lord  come!"  They  ransacked  the  Old  Testa- 
ment to  support  their  view  of  the  crucifixion 
which  to  them  was  not,  as  to  orthodox  Jews,  "a 
Btumbling-block,"  but  a  fate  that  had  been  fore- 
told. Jesus'  sufferings,  they  held,  were  divinely 
ordained,  they  were  a  prearranged  part  of  the 
Messiah's  vocation  and  not  at  all  a  thwarting  of 
the  Divine  will.  The  apostles  further  insisted 
that  the  Law,  while  indispensable  to  salvation 
yet  needed  supplementing  by  belief  in  the  re- 
deeming power  of  Jesus'  death.  If  the  orthodox 
Jews  objected  that  Jesus  could  not  be  the  Mes- 
siah because  he  was  rejected  by  his  own  people, 
the  apostles  met  the  objection  with  the  words : 
"This  is  the  stone  which  was  set  at  naught  by 
you  builders  and  which  is  become  the  head  of 
the  corner."  ^  If  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  was 
denied,  the  psalmist's  assurance  was  quoted  in 
reply,  viz.,  that  the  Messiah  of  whom  he  wrote 
"should  not  see  corruption."  If  one  doubted 
the  return  of  Jesus,  his  scepticism  was  met  with 
a  passage  from  Daniel,  demonstrating,  in  the 
judgment   of   the   apostles,   the   certainty   of 

lActs  4:11. 

68 


FKOM   JESUS   TO   PAUL 

Jesus*  coming.^     They  looked  ahead  with  con- 
fidence and  enthusiasm  to  the  ushering  in  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  by  Messiah-Jesus.     And 
they  conceived  the  kingdom,  not  as  a  heavenly 
felicity,  not  as  a  state  of  inward  purity,  but  as 
a  new  order  of  society  on  earth.    At  first,  the 
preaching  of  the  apostles  was  not  seriously  in- 
terfered with.   But  after  Peter's  second  speech, 
certain  members  of  the  priestly  party,  chafing 
under  its  widespread  acceptance,  caused  Peter, 
and  John,  who  was  vnth.  him,  to  be  arrested. 
Both,  however,  were  released  with  a  warning 
to  desist  from  preaching  and  healing.    A  few 
days  later,  the  whole  band  of  twelve  apostles 
was  arrested  for  contempt  of   court,   having 
failed  to  heed  the  warning  of  the  council.    At 
the  trial  the  statement  was  made,  "We  ought 
to  obey  God  rather  than  men,"  and  Peter  reiter- 
ated the  argument  advanced  at  the  preceding 
trial.    Incensed  and  infuriated,  the  council  was 
about  to  order  the  apostles  to  be  put  to  death 
for  blasphemy  when  a  distinguished  scholar 
and  doctor  of  the  Law,  Gamaliel  by  name,  the 
grandson   of  Hillel,   interceded,    pleading   for 
toleration  and  advising  the  council  to  let  these 
men  alone,  on  the  ground  that  if  what  they  stood 

1  Acts  3:19;  cf.  Dan.  7:13. 

6  69 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

for  be  false  the  movement  would  soon  die  a 
natural  death,  but  if  their  message  have  truth 
in  it,  how  unfavorably  it  would  reflect  upon  the 
council  to  be  found  fighting  against  the  truth. 
So  the  apostles,  after  being  scourged  for  dis- 
obedience to  the  court's  order,  and  as  a  warn- 
ing for  the  future,  were  discharged.  "Yet  they 
ceased  not  to  teach  and  to  preach  Jesus  the 
Christ,  rejoicing  that  they  were  counted  worthy 
to  suffer  shame  for  his  name.^  And  the  num- 
ber of  converts  continued  to  increase.  Among 
them  was  a  Greek  Jew  named  Stephen,  a  man 
of  exceptional  ability  in  debate.  Entering  into 
discussion  with  certain  Jews,  he  quoted  Moses 
against  their  orthodoxy  and  declared  that  Jesus 
would  destroy  the  temple  and  change  the  cus- 
toms inherited  from  Moses.  For  this  he  was 
arrested  and  brought  to  the  council  to  answer 
the  charges  of  blasphemy.  In  his  defence  he 
reviewed  the  history  of  Israel,  stressing  two 
points  in  particular,  viz.  (1)  that  God  had  re- 
vealed Himself  apart  from  the  temple  and  in 
other  lands  so  that  even  were  the  temple  to  be 
destroyed  His  care  for  Israel  would  not  cease; 
and  (2)  that  with  characteristic  perversity  and 
blindness  the  Jews  had  rejected  their  God-sent 

•Acts  5:41, 42— an  historical  chapter  with  legendary  elements. 
70 


FROM   JESUS   TO   PAUL 

deliverers,  Joseph  and  Moses,  and  in  a  still 
more  shameful  way,  Jesus.  Then,  with  a  sub- 
lime outburst  of  indignation  Stephen  brought 
his  defence  to  a  close.  "Ye  stiff-necked,  ye  un- 
circumcised  in  heart  and  ears,  ye  do  always 
resist  the  Holy  Ghost;  as  your  fathers  did,  so 
do  ye."^  Whereupon  the  council  gnashed  their 
teeth  upon  him,  had  him  dragged  outside  the 
city-wall  and  there  stoned  to  death.  By  one  of 
the  strange  coincidences  of  history  the  man  who 
was  to  take  up  Stephen's  cause  and  put  his 
thought  into  definite  and  victorious  form  was 
the  man  at  whose  feet  the  stoners  of  the  martyr 
laid  their  cloaks — Saul,  afterwards  called 
Paul.  Abhorrent  as  the  doctrines  of  Stephen 
then  seemed  to  him,  the  calm  serenity  and 
trustfulness  expressed  on  the  face  of  the  dying 
martyr  took  strong  and  deep  hold  on  the  heart 
of  the  orthodox  Saul  and,  later,  became  a 
powerful  influence  in  creating  the  heterodox 
Paul.  Immediately  after  Stephen's  death  there 
ensued  a  general  persecution  by  the  Jews  of 
all  who  believed  in  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus, 
driving  the  apostles  out  of  Jerusalem  to  the 
surrounding  country  districts.  Here  they 
carried  on  their  missionary  work,  much  after 

1  Acts  7:51. 

71 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

the  manner  of  tlie  early  Franciscans,  friend 
quietly  revealing  to  friend  the  glad  gospel  till 
all  the  region  round  Judea,  (as  in  all  Italy)  was 
filled  with  the  inspiring  message.    Into  Sama- 
ria and  beyond,  to  Joppa  and  Caesarea,  even  as 
far  as  Damascus — to  which  Syrian  city  Saul 
made  an  expedition  to  suppress  the  Messianic 
heresy — did  the  persecuted  missionaries  carry 
their   Messianic  belief.     Across   the   Mediter- 
ranean it  was  taken,  to  Cyprus,  Phoenicia  and 
Antioch.     In  all  these  places  Jews  were  con- 
verted to  the  belief  that  Jesus  is  the  Messiah. 
The  number  of  converts  reported  by  the  author 
of  the  Acts  is  surely  an  exaggeration,  for  the 
great  majority  of  Jews  remained  untouched  by 
the  belief.    If,  now,  we  ask  why  was  their  re- 
sponse so  limited,  the  answer  is  because  most 
of  the  Jews  who  heard  the  new  doctrine  could 
not  reconcile  it  with  the  fact  of  the  crucifixion. 
For,  they  argued,  if  Jesus  were  really  the  Mes- 
siah he  would  not  have  been  rejected  by  his  own 
people,  much  less  crucified.     And  though  the 
missionaries  met  this  objection  by  appeal  to 
Old  Testament  foretellings  of  both  the  rejection 
and  the  crucifixion,  it  failed  to  convince.     So, 
too,  when  these  Jews  asked,  why  was  Jesus  cru- 
cified, and  the  apostles  answered  that  the  sacri- 


FROM   JESUS   TO   PAUL 

fice  on  the  cross  furnished  a  means  of  salvation 
to  all  who  acknowledged  it,  this  response  carried 
no  conviction.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  met  with 
the  counter-question:  Is  not  the  Law  sufficient 
unto  salvation!  And  though  the  reply  to  this 
was  that  the  Law  is  indispensable  to  salvation, 
and  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  Jesus'  sacrifice  se- 
cures salvation,  yet  for  the  conservative  ma- 
jority this  contention  carried  no  weight.  Con- 
cerning this  general  persecution,  which  occurred 
in  the  year  34-35,  it  should  be  noted  that  it 
was  but  one  of  a  number  of  minor  persecutions 
which  broke  out  spasmodically  during  the  first 
two  centuries  of  our  era.  Hence  the  apostles 
were  enabled  to  maintain  their  cause  in  Jeru- 
salem, returning  thither  after  the  persecution 
had  subsided.  Indeed,  so  long  as  they  obeyed 
the  Law  and  were  found  in  attendance  at  the 
temple  services,  the  main  motive  for  persecu- 
tion was  wanting.  Even  against  Paul,  persecut- 
ing steps  were  taken  only  when  he  had  been 
accused  of  violating  the  Law  by  bringing  Gen- 
tiles into  the  temple.^  Two  important  effects 
followed  from  this  general  persecution  in  the 
year  of  Stephen's  death.  First,  it  evidenced 
the  breach  between  orthodox  Judaism  and  the 

1  Acts  21:27. 

73 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

Messianic  sect  of  Judaism  represented  by  the 
apostles  and  their  followers.  All  prospect  of 
a  reconciliation  between  the  two  parties  became 
increasingly  unpromising.  Second,  the  perse- 
cution led  to  the  expansion  of  missionary  work 
by  driving  the  missionaries  out  of  Jerusalem. 
And  this,  in  turn,  prepared  the  way  for  the 
Christian  missionary,  Paul,  who,  as  we  shall 
see,  effected  the  complete  transition  from 
Judaism  to  Christianity. 

Our  chief  source  of  information  concerning 
the  events  we  have  discussed  is  the  Book  of  Acts. 
Upon  its  data  we  have  drawn  to  support  state- 
ments of  historical  and  biographical  interest. 
Once  or  twice  we  have  had  occasion  to  question 
the  truth  of  what  was  reported  by  the  author. 
At  times  we  have  felt  that  he  must  have  had  a 
decided  tendency  to  embellish  or  exaggerate  the 
facts  at  his  command.  And  these  impressions 
gain  a  measure  of  endorsement  from  modem 
scholarship.  Long  has  the  Book  of  Acts  been 
under  fire  as  a  dubious  source  of  information 
on  the  events  with  which  it  deals.  Its  untrust- 
worthiness  has  been  remarked  upon  by  critics 
of  every  school.  Of  late,  however,  a  reaction  has 
set  in,  due  for  the  most  part,  to  the  advances 
made  in  critical  apparatus  and  acumen.  A  more 

74 


FROM   JESUS   TO   PAUL 

discriminating  judgment  of  its  contents  and  a 
jiister  appreciation  of  its  author's  purpose  and 
motive  have  been  developed,  so  that  today  one 
must  turn  toward,  rather  than  away  from,  the 
book,  consulting  it  carefully  indeed,  but  not 
fearfully,  as  a  valued  informant  on  many  a  de- 
tail of  post-crucifixion  history.* 

Not  to  dwell  at  too  great  length  upon  the 
genuineness  and  authenticity  of  the  book,  let  it 
suffice  if,  before  proceeding  further,  we  note, 
briefly,  the  more  important  points  which  justify 
reliance  on  most  of  what  it  relates. 

By  the  genuineness  of  a  book  is  meant  that 
it  was  written  by  the  author  whose  name  it 
bears;  by  aidJienticity  is  understood  that  the 
narratives  of  the  book  are  accurately  and  com- 
pletely reported.  It  would  seem  from  a  com- 
parison of  the  first  verse  of  the  book  with  the 
preface  of  the  third  gospel  (see.  1-4)  that  both 
works  are  by  the  same  hand.  The  many  points 
of  fundamental  agreement  between  the  gospel 
and  the  Book  of  Acts — notably  the  linguistic  and 
stylistic  peculiarities,  the  equality  of  Gentiles 
with  Jews  as  recipients  of  the  gospel,  the  kindly 
attitude  taken  toward  Samaritans;  these,  too, 

» See  especially  the  article  by  Prof.  H.  H.  Wendt,  in  the 
Hibbert  Journal,  October,  1913. 

75 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

point  to  singleness  of  authorship.  The  pres- 
ence of  the  so-called  "We"  sections  in  the 
Book  of  Acts^  seems  to  argue  for  composite 
authorship,  but,  as  has  been  often  shown,  the 
author  of  these  sections  may  well  have  been  the 
author  of  the  entire  book  because  it  begins  with 
a  personal  address,  "The  former  treatise  have 
I  written,  0  Theophilus,"  and  a  subsequent 
"we"  would  naturally  include  the  "I"  of  the 
preface.  Nor  again,  does  the  date,  100  a.d., 
assigned  to  the  book,  forbid  belief  in  the  single- 
ness of  its  authorship  or  that  its  writer  was  a 
companion  of  Paul  who  produced  his  narrative, 
for  the  most  part,  from  personal  experience 
and  for  the  rest  relied  on  other  sources  of  in- 
formation. 

Granted  that  the  book  is  "saturated  with  the 
marvelous,"  this  does  not  compel  us  to  ques- 
tion the  substantial  accuracy  of  its  narrative. 
As  for  the  passages  that  gainsay  what  Paul  re- 
ported in  his  letter  to  the  Galatians,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  this  epistle  was  written  at 
white  heat  and  under  extreme  pressure  and,  as 
such,  does  not  represent  the  habitual  thought 
and  spirit  of  the  apostle.  Nay,  more  his  own 
moody  temperament,  admitted  by  himself  and 

*  Acts  16,  10  et  passim. 

76 


FEOM   JESUS    TO   PAUL 

revealed  in  his  letters,  warrants  acceptance  of 
what  the  Book  of  Acts  relates  concerning  him. 
If  it  be  said  that  "Acts  makes  Peter  unduly 
Pauline,"  a  just  answer  would  be  that  a  more 
liberal  spirit  obtained  in  the  church  at  Jeru- 
salem in  the  early  days,  before  James  became 
head  of  the  church,  and  that  the  liberality  of 
Paul  may  have  occasioned  the  narrowness  of 
James, — a  sequence  of  which  we  have  many 
a  parallel  in  religious  history.  No  intelligent, 
free-minded  critic  will  maintain  that  the  book,  in 
its  entirety,  is  trustworthy.  On  the  other  hand 
the  assertion  that  "the  book  is  an  historical  ro- 
mance cut  out  of  whole  cloth"  is  an  unwarranted 
assumption.  Be  it  frankly  recognized  that  the 
book  contains  historical,  biographical,  chronolo- 
gical inaccuracies,  which,  in  the  light  of  recent 
scholarship,  can  be  readily  detected ;  grant  that 
the  book  shows  unmistakable  signs  of  sympa- 
thies that  led  the  author  to  smooth  down  dif- 
ferences between  Peter  and  Paul;  admit  that 
there  are  anachronisms  in  the  book  which  point 
to  carelessness  or  misinformation ;  yet,  despite 
these  defects  and  limitations,  discerning  judg- 
ment must  pronounce  the  book,-  as  a  whole,  an 
honest  and  authentic  piece  of  historical  litera- 
ture. 

77 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

From  what  has  been  thus  far  said  concern- 
ing the  first  days  of  the  disciples  in  Jerusalem 
after  the  crucifixion,  it  must  be  clear  that  they 
had  no  thought  of  launching  upon  the  world  a 
new  type  of  religion.  They  were  simply  hetero- 
dox Jews  holding,  along  with  their  inlierited 
Judaism  three  extra  beliefs — the  Messiahship 
of  Jesus,  his  return  from  heaven,  and  the  effi- 
cacy of  his  death  on  the  cross  as  a  means  of 
salvation,  supplemental  to  the  Law.  By  birth, 
education  and  confession  these  men  were  Jews 
and  remained  Jews  throughout  their  life.  They 
represented  a  sect  of  Judaism,  i.e.,  a  part  of 
Judaism  cut  off  from  the  rest  to  live  for  itself 
and  convert  all  the  rest  into  material  for  its 
own  growth.  Their  religious  history  is  one  pro- 
longed confirmation  of  this  attitude  and  en- 
deavor. They  were  not  Christians  because 
there  had  not  been  developed,  as  yet,  a  religion 
definitely  distinct  from  Judaism.  This  was  to 
be  eventually  evolved  from  the  Jewish  sect  rep- 
resented by  the  apostles.  Their  type  of  re- 
ligion might  be  called  "Messianism,"  or  "Nazar- 
enism"  to  distinguish  it,  alike  from  Christianity 
and  from  Judaism.^  What  they  did  was  to  take 
the  first  step  away  from  orthodox  Judaism  to- 

» Acts  24:5. 

78 


FROM   JESUS    TO    PAUL 

ward  the  formation  of  a  new  religion.  They 
were  the  link  connecting  that  Judaism  with  the 
work  of  the  apostle  Paul.  For  him  it  remained 
to  lead  the  way  out  from  Nazarenism  to  Chris- 
tianity. But  before  coming  to  this  absorbingly 
interesting  subject — the  part  played  by  Paul  in 
the  evolution  of  the  new  religion — it  will  be 
worth  our  while  to  come  closer  to  the  life  and 
thought  of  the  primitive  community  which 
represented  Nazarenism  at  Jerusalem.  To  this 
the  next  lecture  will  be  devoted. 


IV 


THE  PRIMITIVE   COMMUNITY  IN   JERUSALEM 

We  have  seen  that  the  primitive  community 
in  Jerusalem,  composed  of  the  twelve  apostles 
and  their  followers,  was  a  Jewish  community. 
The  members  of  this  group  differed  from  all 
other  Jews  in  the  following  five  particulars. 
They  believed  (1)  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah; 
(2)  that  he  would  soon  return  from  heaven  and 
prove  himself  such  by  inaugurating  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  on  earth;  (3)  that  his  sacrifice  on  the 
cross  served  as  a  means  of  salvation  supple- 
mental to  the  saving  power  of  the  Law;  (4) 
that  there  is  a  way  of  living  (aSo?)  to  be 
adopted  by  all  who  share  these  three  views  con- 
cerning Jesus;  and  (5)  that  all  goods  of  what- 
ever kind  should  be  held  in  common  and  private 
property  be  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

Characteristic  of  their  "way"  of  living  was  the 

80 


COMMUNITY   IN   JERUSALEM 

habit  of  taking  no  thought  for  the  morrow,  lay- 
ing up  no  treasures  on  earth,  praying  for  them 
who  persecuted,  loving  enemies — by  no  means 
an  impossible  achievement  to  the  primitive  com- 
munity, because,  as  was  instanced  in  the  case  of 
Stephen,  the  real  meaning  of  this  virtue  had 
been  grasped.^  Still  another  feature  of  their 
"way"  of  living,  was  the  habit  of  going  about 
with  faces  turned  skyward  in  order  to  catch 
the  first  possible  glimpse  of  Messiah-Jesus 
when  he  came  down  from  heaven.  In  a  word, 
the  "way"  meant  living  then  and  there,  as 
though  Jesus  had  already  descended  and  estab- 
lished the  kingdom  of  God  and  thus  irradiat- 
ing daily  life  with  the  glow  of  a  divine  enthu- 
siasm and  consecration. 

Concerning  the  kind  of  communism  practiced 
in  the  primitive  community  it  is  difficult  to 
determine  precisely  what  it  was.  And  the  rea- 
son is  that  the  author  of  our  one  only  authority 
on  the  question  has  left  us  contradictory  ac- 
counts, drawn  from  various  documents  at  his 
command  and  woven  into  his  record  with  no 
consciousness  of  any  discrepancies.  From  one 
of  the  passages  in  his  history^  we  learn  that 
the  sale  of  all  possessions  whatsoever  was  en- 

'  Acts  7:60.    « Acts  2:45. 

81 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

joined  upon  the  community,  the  income  to 
create  a  common  fund  from  which  the  needs  of 
the  members  were  to  be  supplied.  According  to 
what  is  stated  elsewhere^  it  is  clear  that  only- 
lands  and  houses  were  to  be  sold  and  that  from 
the  sale  of  these  alone  a  common  treasury  was 
to  be  formed.  On  the  other  hand,  we  find,  as 
against  the  preceding  injunctions,  the  authoriz- 
ing of  retention,  for  private  use,  of  one's  prop- 
erty, or  of  money  derived  from  the  sale  of  it, 
the  owner  being  expected  to  part  willingly  with 
a  portion  of  what  he  possessed  as  need  arose.^ 
Obviously  from  such  conflicting  clauses  it  is 
impossible  to  determine  the  exact  character  of 
the  communism  that  was  practiced.  In  all  prob- 
ability the  concurrent  testimony  of  two  pas- 
sages^ brings  us  as  close  to  the  truth  as  we  can 
hope  to  come,  viz.,  that  property  holders  were 
not  required  to  dispose  of  their  holdings  so  that 
a  common  monetary  fund  might  be  created,  but 
rather,  that  owners  placed  their  property,  in  a 
general  way,  at  the  disposal  of  the  community 
guaranteeing  that  no  one  should  be  in  want  and 
making  community  of  goods  in  this  sense  a  char- 
acteristic of  the  community-life.  Thus  the  well- 
to-do  helped  to  support  the  poorer  members  in 
1  Acts  4:34.  ^  Acts  5:3,4.  '  Acts  2:44;  4:32. 
82 


COMMUNITY  IN   JERUSALEM 

the  spirit  of  charity  rather  than  on  the  basis  of 
any  precise  and  economic  arrangement.  Just 
as  there  had  been  a  common  purse  among  the 
immediate  followers  of  Jesus,  so  among  the 
brethren  in  Jerusalem,  living  together  as  though 
Jesus  had  already  returned  to  them,  it  was  felt 
that  there  should  prevail  a  corresponding  com- 
munistic principle,  to  be  practically  applied  in 
harmony  with  the  altered  conditions  of  the  new 
environment.  Thus  there  arose  in  Jerusalem 
during  the  first  half  of  the  first  century,  this 
voluntary  communism,  based  on  the  example  of 
the  original  twelve,  inspired  by  that  sympathy 
for  the  poor  which  was  a  conspicuous  trait  in 
the  character  of  Jesus  and  actuated  by  jubilant 
belief  in  the  speedy  advent  of  Jesus  who 
would  lead  the  w^ay  to  the  true  and  imperish- 
able riches.  Wliy,  then  take  thought  for  the 
morrow,  why  wish  to  lay  up  earthly  treasures, 
seeing  that  so  soon  an  inheritance  of  spiritual 
and  eternal  treasure  would  be  theirs?  What 
better  thing  could  a  wealthy  man  do  with  his 
money  than  spend  it  in  beneficent  ways  while 
there  is  still  time  to  make  good  use  of  it?  Wlio 
would  waste  time  and  energy  in  working  out 
a  detailed  system  of  social  and  economic  exist- 
ence when,  perhaps  even  before  it  had  been 

83 


THE    DAWN   OP   CHRISTIANITY 

mapped  out,  all  further  use  for  it  would  have 
disappeared?  No  wonder  then  that  the  "way" 
of  living,  in  its  ethical  and  social  aspects,  took 
on  the  particular  form  which  early  Christian 
literature  attests.  Incidentally  it  may  be  of 
interest  to  note  that  the  voluntary  communism 
of  the  primitive  community  proved  disastrous, 
precisely  as  have  kindred  Christian  socialis- 
tic experiments  in  our  own  day.  For  we  have 
the  testimony  of  the  apostle  Paul  who  on  several 
occasions  had  to  solicit  aid  for  the  poor  breth- 
ren of  the  mother  church  at  Jerusalem.* 

Alas  that  communism,  of  whatever  kind,  al- 
ways captivates  loafers  as  well  as  saints  and  en- 
lists along  with  consecrated  adherents  unscrupu- 
lous hangers-on,  ever  ready  and  eager  to  seize 
any  and  every  opportunity  whereby  something 
may  be  had  for  nothing!  Typical  of  all  the 
splendid  social  schemes  of  the  ages  is  their  offer- 
ing to  the  imagination  of  what  the  heroic  rejoice 
to  give  and  also  that  which  dead-beats  are 
greedy  to  take. 

Naturally  enough  such  an  order  of  society 
as  that  of  the  primitive  community,  based  on 
brotherhood  and  mutual  honor  and  trust,  of- 
fered  its   temptations,  then   as  now,  and   in 

» Gal.  2:10;  I.  Cor.  16:1-3. 

84 


COMMUNITY   IN   JERUSALEM 

the  story  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira  we  have 
an  illustration  of  one  of  these  temptations. 
This  man  and  woman,  members  of  the  com- 
munity, had  sold  a  piece  of  property,  keeping 
for  themselves  part  of  the  money  derived  from 
its  sale,  yet  professing  to  have  given  over  the 
entire  amount  for  the  benefit  of  the  community, 
as  was  expected  in  this  case.  When  interro- 
gated as  to  the  proceeds  and  their  disposal  of 
it  they  lied  and,  according  to  the  narrator,  were 
instantly  struck  dead.^  Without  pausing  to  re- 
hearse the  story  in  detail  let  it  suffice  only  to 
observe  that  the  chief  fault  of  this  unscrupu- 
lous pair  was  not  their  keeping  to  themselves 
part  of  the  price  of  the  land,  but  their  pretend- 
ing to  have  paid  all  of  it  to  the  treasurer  of 
the  community.  It  was  their  deceitful  attempt 
to  shine  in  the  estimation  of  the  brethren  and 
get  credit  for  generosity  when  they  had  been 
thieves,  secretly  retaining  what  in  honor  be- 
longed to  the  community;  this,  it  is,  that  de- 
serves supreme  condemnation.  Be  it  observed, 
also,  that  the  very  existence  of  such  a  story, 
embellished  history,  or  legend,  as  it  plainly  is, 
proves  that  the  spirit  of  honor  and  trust  ani- 
mated the  community.  Nor,  again,  could  any- 

1  Acts  5:5-10. 

7  85 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

thing  more  adequately  attest  the  high  ethical 
spirit  and  standard  of  the  community  as  a 
whole,  than  the  belief  that,  for  the  sin  of  steal- 
ing and  lying,  so  terrible  a  punishment  as  in- 
stantaneous death  was  inflicted. 

There  were,  then,  five  respects  in  which  the 
Jerusalem  community  differed  from  the  rest 
of  the  Jews.  The  differentiating  features  con- 
stituted the  community  a  sect  of  Judaism,  for 
in  all  other  respects  they  were  like  their  ortho- 
dox brethren.  Far  from  wishing  to  regard 
themselves  as  representatives  of  a  new  religion, 
they  felt  they  were  true  descendants  of  the 
faithful  remnant  of  Israel  of  which  Isaiah  had 
spoken,  the  saving  kernel  of  the  nation.  They 
spoke  of  themselves  as  "the  seed  of  Abraham," 
"the  elect,"  "the  people  of  God,"  "believers," 
"saints,"  "the  church  of  God,"^  while  the  Jews 
who  refused  to  accept  Jesus  as  the  Messiah 
they  designated  "the  synagogue  of  Satan."  By 
these  names  they  wished  to  convey  their  convic- 
tion that  they  were  "a  people  within  a  people," 
the  real  and  only  inheritors  of  the  glory  yet  to 
be.  They  called  themselves  "believers"  because 
they  held  to  belief  in  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus ; 
"saints,"  because  they  had  been  sanctified  by 

1  Rom.  11:8,  33;    Acts  5:14;  9:32,  41. 
86 


COMMUNITY   IN   JERUSALEM 

the  descent  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  Pentecost 
morning;  "the  church,"  or  assembly  (ecclesia), 
because  this  term,  the  equivalent  of  the  Hebrew 
Kahal,  expressed  the  idea  of  a  community  called 
of  God  and  was  the  most  solemn  expression  in 
the  religious  vocabulary  of  Judaism.  It  signi- 
fied the  people  in  their  relation  to  God  with 
whom  a  covenant  had  been  made.  To  have 
adopted  this  peculiarly  meaningful  term  as  des- 
criptive of  the  primitive  community  was  noth- 
ing less  than  a  stroke  of  genius.*  Nor,  again, 
was  it  the  purpose  of  the  members  to  transform 
society  in  accordance  with  some  scheme  of 
social  reconstruction.  Eather  was  it  to 
let  the  passing  order  of  society  be  and,  dur- 
ing the  short  interval  that  would  transpire 
until  "the  coming  of  the  Lord,"  live  together 
in  the  spirit  of  his  life  and  according  to  his 
teaching. 

Reference  has  already  been  made  more  than 
once  to  this  great  expectation  and  as  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  recur  to  it  many  times  more, 
it  may  be  well  if  at  this  point  we  pause  to 
clarify  our  thought  of  the  "Kingdom  of  God" 
and  the  hopes  bound  up  with  it  in  New  Testa- 

*  SeeHarnack:  "The  Constitution  and  Law  of  the  Church" 
for  fuller  details  concerning  these  names, 

87 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

ment  times.  No  one  who  reads  the  gospels,  the 
Acts,  the  Epistles,  the  Revelation,  with  unbiased 
mind,  can  fail  to  see  that  the  New  Testament  is 
saturated  with  the  Messianic  expectation.  As 
with  an  atmosphere  the  whole  record  is  per- 
vaded by  the  belief  that  the  existing  order  of 
things  is  soon  coming  to  an  end  and  a  new  type 
of  society  to  be  miraculously  established  in  its 
place.  From  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Thes- 
salonians,  earliest  of  the  New  Testament  writ- 
ings, to  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  latest  of 
its  constituent  books,  we  find  the  various  au- 
thors on  tip-toe  of  expectation,  each  describing 
the  advent  of  the  heavenly  kingdom  in  figurative 
language  aglow  with  intense  feeling.  So  vital 
and  fundamental  is  the  recognition  of  this  fact 
to  an  adequate  appreciation  of  the  beginnings 
of  Christian  doctrine  and  practice  that  we  must 
pause  at  this  point  to  review  the  principal  pas- 
sages of  the  New  Testament  in  which  it  is  given 
unmistakable  expression.  Taking  these  re- 
ferences in  their  chronological  order  we  begin 
with  the  familiar  passage  in  which  the  message 
of  John  the  Baptist,  is  stated.^  John  was  pre- 
eminently a  preacher  of  repentance  and  the  bur- 
den of  his  gospel  is  the  necessity  of  immediate 

» Matt.  3;  1-2. 

88 


COMMUNITY   IN   JERUSALEM 

personal  regeneration  because  the  time  is  very 
short  till  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  when  none 
who  are  unfit  for  membership  in  that  kingdom 
shall  escape  the  wrath  to  come.  Hence  the 
short  sharp  admonition,  "Repent,  for  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  at  hand." 

Jesus  followed  in  the  wake  of  John's  minis- 
try,* crowning  his  somewhat  indefinite  state- 
ments with  precise  predictions  touching  the 
time  and  the  outward  signs  of  the  kingdom's 
advent.  The  end  will  come,  he  affirms,  before 
the  generation  then  living  shall  have  passed 
away.  All  three  of  the  Synoptic  writers  agree 
in  their  testimony  on  this  point.^  Again,  Jesus 
is  reported  as  saymg  that  there  are  persons 
standing  before  him  who  will  not  taste  death 
before  the  coming  of  the  kingdom;^  while,  to 
his  disciples,  he  declares  that  they  will  not  have 
had  time  to  complete  the  circuit  of  their  preach- 
ing in  the  cities  of  Israel  before  the  end  will 
come.* 

Concerning  the  "signs"  of  its  coming  we  read 
in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  of  Jesus  foretelling 
the  events  that  will  signalize  the  great  trans- 

» Mark  1:14. 

2  Matt.  24:34;  Mark  13:30;  Luke  21:32. 

» Mark  9:1.    *  Matt.  10:23. 

89 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

formation.  In  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  the 
Markan  gospel  there  has  been  embodied  a  docu- 
ment, written  about  the  year  70  and  some- 
times called  "the  little  Apocalypse,"  in  which 
Jesus  is  quoted,  predicting,  with  impressionist 
word-painting,  the  signs  by  which  the  catastro- 
phic change  will  be  heralded.^  In  the  corre- 
sponding passage  of  the  Matthean  narrative 
Jesus  is  reported  as  saying  that  "immediately 
after"  the  aforesaid  fatalities  the  end  would 
come.2  The  third  evangelist,  incorporating  in 
his  record  the  Markan  document  and  realizing 
that  the  end  did  not  come  at  once,  allowed  for 
an  interval  between  the  destruction  of  Jerusa- 
lem and  the  coming  of  the  kingdom.  Conse- 
quently in  his  account  of  Jesus'  prediction  we 
read:  "Jerusalem  will  be  trodden  down  by 
Gentiles  till  the  times  of  the  Gentiles  be  ful- 
filled." And  "then  will  the  Son  of  Man  come." 
It  is  noteworthy  also  that  the  author  of  the 
earliest  extant  biography  of  Jesus  (the  Mar- 
kan) presents  him  not  as  an  ethical  teacher  but 
rather  as  an  eschatological  teacher,  one  who  be- 
lieved with  all  his  soul  that  the  end  of  the  world 
was  near  and  who  went  from  Galilee  to  Jerusa- 

>Mark  13:7-8,  14-20,  24-27,  30-31. 
» Matt.  24:29. 

90 


COMMUNITY   IN   JERUSALEM 

lem  to  precipitate  the  catastrophe,  persuaded 
that  by  so  doing  and  giving  up  his  life  for  his 
belief,  God  would  promptly  make  him  the  Mes- 
siah. Just  here  let  it  be  emphatically  affirmed 
that  no  effort  at  "spiritualizing"  or  "allegoriz- 
ing" the  terms  "Kingdom  of  God"  and  "King- 
dom of  Heaven,"  so  as  to  make  them  synony- 
mous with  glad  tidings  of  salvation,  or  an  ex- 
alted state  of  the  soul,  or  a  condition  of  spir- 
itual purity,  can  set  at  naught  their  plain, 
clear,  terrestrial  reference.  Granted  that  there 
are  occasional  verses^  in  which  these  terms  ap- 
pear as  connoting  something  other  than  an  ex- 
ternal social  state,  they  by  no  means  contradict 
this  latter  conception.  The  truth  is  that  Jesus 
used  these  expressions  almost  invariably  to  sig- 
nify that  new  order  of  society  on  earth  which 
he,  like  all  other  Jews,  believed  God  would 
miraculously  establish  through  His  Messiah. 
When  he  did  not  so  use  these  terms — as  in  the 
isolated  passages  just  referred  to— they  were 
employed  to  indicate  that  inward  moral  purity 
which  was  the  essential  prerequisite  for  mem- 
bership in  the  eternal  kingdom  so  soon  to  come. 
To  Jesus  the  "Kingdom  of  God"  meant  both 
the  coming  transfigured  society  and  the  condi- 

^e.g.  Luke  17:21;  cf.  I.  Cor.  4:20;  Rom.  14:17. 
91 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

tion  upon  wliicli  entrance  to  it  depended.  But 
in  the  great  majority  of  reported  instances,  Ms 
allusion  was  to  the  former  alone.  One  has 
only  to  consult  the  inter-biblical  books,  notably 
"Enoch"  and  the  "Psalter  of  Solomon,"  together 
with  the  literature  of  the  Old  Testament  from 
the  time  of  Amos  to  that  of  Daniel,  to  see  that 
the  New  Testament  conception  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  the  product  of  a  thought-process  the 
beginnings  of  which  can  be  traced  to  the  As- 
syrian invasion  of  the  northern  kingdom,  an- 
ticipated by  the  prophet-statesman  Amos,  in 
whose  prediction  of  a  glorious  future  for  Israel 
we  recognize  the  germ  of  what  was  slowly 
evolved  in  the  course  of  seven  centuries  into 
the  Synoptic  and  Pauline  idea  of  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

Eeverting  now  to  our  chronological  survey 
we  pass  from  the  views  of  John  the  Baptist 
and  Jesus  to  the  statements  of  the  apostle 
Paul.  Writing  only  twenty  years  after  the  cru- 
cifixion, he  declared  that  at  any  moment,  "in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye,"  the  Christ  might  ap- 
pear to  usher  in  the  kingdom.^  He  himself  ex- 
pects to  witness  the  great  transfiguration. 
For  him  it  is  a  mystery;  i.e.,  a  Divine  secret 

1 1.  Cor.  15:52. 


COMMUNITY  IN   JERUSALEM 

which  has  been  revealed  to  him.^  In  the  most 
explicit  terms  he  states  his  conviction  that 
many  of  his  readers  will  not  die  but  undergo 
transfiguration,  while  those  believers  who  have 
already  died  will  first  be  awakened  at  the  blast 
of  the  trumpet  and  then  be  also  transfigured. 
And  if  the  first  letter  to  the  Thessalonians  be 
also  a  genuine  epistle  of  Paul,  the  further  con- 
viction must  be  added  that  the  living  would  be 
"caught  up"  with  the  awakened  ones  "to  meet 
the  Lord  in  the  air"  as  he  descended  upon  the 
clouds.^ 

In  the  light  of  these  sayings  of  Jesus  and 
Paul,  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  pro- 
nounced eschatological  character  of  their  think- 
ing. Moreover,  we  must  note  that  this  eschat- 
ology  explains  much  of  their  ethical  teach- 
ing. For,  while  it  would  be  wholly  unwar- 
ranted to  assert  that  the  ethics  of  Jesus  and 
Paul  is  "purely  eschatological,"  seeing  that 
many  an  ethical  precept  of  theirs  is  entirely  de- 
void of  association  with  thought  of  the  coming 
crisis,  yet  there  can  be  no  overlooking  the  fact 
that  such  injunctions  as  those  relating  to  im- 
providence, wealth,  divorce  and  marriage  are 

II.  Cor.  15:51,  cf.  Rom.  11:25. 

»I.  Thess.  4:16,  17;  cf.  I.  Cor.  16:22;  10:11;  11.  Cor.5:4; 
Phil.  3:21;  I.  Thess.  1:9,  10. 

93 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

frankly  and  squarely  grounded  on  an  eschato- 
logical  basis. ^  Similarly  the  temporary  com- 
promise effected  by  Paul  and  the  apostles  at 
the  Jerusalem  conference  (to  which  we  shall 
revert  in  a  later  lecture)  is  explained  by  ref- 
erence to  the  same  thought  that  the  end  of  the 
world  was  near.  It  was  agreed  that  each  party 
should  serve  its  own  constituency  in  its  own 
way,  for  the  reason  that  the  Kingdom  is  too 
near  at  hand  to  justify  schism  or  protracted 
controversy. 

Turning  next  to  the  Book  of  Revelation  one 
can  easily  and  unerringly  read  in  its  figurative 
language  references  to  contemporary  Roman 
history.  The  author  points  clearly  to  the  im- 
pending destruction  of  Jerusalem,  after  which, 
he  holds,  the  time  of  the  end  will  be  at  hand. 
In  the  first  chapter  of  this  Apocalypse  we  read : 
"Behold  he  cometh  with  clouds,  every  eye  shall 
see  him  and  they  also  which  pierced  him."  - 
And  just  as  the  book  opens  with  a  revelation  of 
what  is  soon  to  happen,  so  it  closes  with  the 
fervent  utterance,  "Surely  I  come  quickly," 
which  is  greeted  with  the  response,  "yea,  come 
Lord  Jesus." 

» Matt.  6,  19  seq.,  cf.  19:12  and  I.  Cor.  8:32-33. 
»Rev.  1:7;  22:20. 

94 


COMMUNITY   IN   JERUSALEM 

The  Book  of  Acts  is  wholly  in  harmony  with 
the  standpoint  of  earlier  works.  Again  and 
again  do  the  apostles  appeal  to  men  to  repent 
and  be  converted  so  that  tbeir  sins  may  be 
blotted  out  when  the  time  of  refreshing  shall 
come  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord.  Scarcely 
a  single  speech  there  is  in  which  reference  to 
the  coming  of  Jesus  from  heaven  to  usher  in 
the  kingdom  is  not  made. 

In  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  author  of 
which  is  unknown,  the  speedy  advent  of  the  last 
day  is  fervently  expected  and  the  readers  are 
admonished  to  live  the  moral  life  because  the 
great  day  is  fast  approaching;  nay,  there  is 
but  a  "very  little  while  remaining  before  the 
coming  One  will  appear.* 

Concerning  the  view  presented  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  it  must  be  observed  that  its  author, 
while  wholly  out  of  sympathy  with  the  popu- 
lar politico-social  conception,  yet  he  does  not 
ignore  it  but  feels  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  re- 
interpret the  idea  in  terms  of  Greek  thought, 
along  with  other  cardinal  Jewish  beliefs. 

Equally  significant  it  is  that  the  writer  of  the 
appendix  to  this  gospel  (chapter  xxi)  retains 
the  traditional   doctrine   of   the   kingdom,    at 

»Heb.  10:25,37. 

95 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

tributing  to  Jesus  the  saying,  "If  I  will  that  he 
(John)  tarry  till  I  come,  what  is  that  to  thee 
(Peter)?" — a  remark  which  reminds  us  of  the 
synoptic  passage,  "There  be  those  standing 
here  who  will  not  see  death  till  the  kingdom 
come."  Nothing  could  more  conclusively  prove 
the  difference  of  authorship  between  the  Fourth 
Gospel  and  its  appendix  than  this  inappropri- 
ate retention  of  an  idea  quite  out  of  keeping 
with  the  character  of  the  Logos-Jesus. 

We  come  next  to  the  so-called  "Johannine" 
epistles,  written  about  the  same  time  as  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  In  these  we  are  brought  back 
again  to  the  notion  of  a  "final  hour."  But  in- 
stead of  being  signaled  by  "war  and  rumors 
of  wars,"  etc.,  it  is  by  the  appearance  of  "Anti- 
christs," in  the  form  of  heretics,  that  "the  end" 
is  to  be  indicated.* 

And  when,  after  protracted  delay  in  the  ful- 
filment of  the  great  expectation,  mockers  ap- 
peared, asking  in  sneering  tones,  "Where  is  the 
promise  of  his  coming?"  the  writer  of  the  so- 
called  Second  Epistle  of  Peter  comes  forward 
with  a  reply.  It  is  that  God  the  all-merciful 
One  would  not  that  a  single  soul  be  lost  but 
rather  that  all  should  repent.    And  since  in  His 

» I.  John  2:18. 

96 


COMMUNITY   IN   JERUSALEM 

celestial  reckoning  a  thousand  years  are  only 
as  a  single  day,  let  no  one  give  way  to  doubt  or 
despair  of  the  coming  of  His  kingdom.^ 

Thus,  throughout  the  first  century  and  a  half 
of  our  era,  it  was  generally  believed  in  Jewish- 
Christian  circles  that  the  time  was  near  at  hand 
for  a  Divine  judgment  of  mankind,  for  punish- 
ment of  the  heathen,  vindication  of  the  saints 
and  for  the  establishment  of  the  heavenly  king- 
dom. Whether  or  not  Jesus  believed  that  he 
would  himself  fulfil  the  Messianic  function  and 
at  the  given  signal  usher  in  the  new  era,  is  still 
an  open  question.  But  that  Paul,  the  apostles 
and  their  followers  firmly  believed  that  Jesus 
was  the  Messiah  and  that  he  would  reappear  as 
such  and  establish  the  kingdom  of  God  on 
earth,  there  can  be  no  question  whatsoever. 

We  are  accustomed  to  describe  these  mem- 
bers of  the  primitive  community  as  "the  first 
Christians."  But  if  we  are  to  speak  accurately 
we  must  call  them  predecessors  of  the  first 
Christians,  because  they  had  not  as  yet  broken 
with  Judaism  nor  had  the  name  Christian  come 
into  existence,  having  been  first  used  by  pagan 
residents  of  Antioch  to  describe,  derisively,  the 
followers   of   the   apostle   Paul   in   that   city.^ 

III.  Pet.  3:8.    *  Acts  11:26. 

97 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

And  it  remained  for  him,  as  we  shall  see  in  the 
next  lecture,  to  take  the  further  step,  beyond 
the  Nazarenism  of  the  primitive  community — 
a  sect  of  Judaism — to  independent  Christian- 
ity. 

From  what  has  been  thus  far  said  it  must  be 
clear  that  enthusiasm  was  the  very  breath  of 
the  primitive  community.  Herein  lies  the  im- 
mediate explanation  of  the  exceeding  simplicity 
of  worship  and  of  church-government  that 
marked  the  religion  of  these  people.  The  in- 
tense belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  the  ex- 
citing expectation  of  his  return,  the  glowing 
thought  of  the  transformed  society,  or  kingdom 
of  heaven,  that  would  follow,  all  combined  to 
create  a  mental  and  spiritual  feverishness  that 
would  of  necessity  be  impatient  with  elaborate 
ritualism  and  ecclesiasticism.  Very  close  is  the 
connection  between  enthusiasm  and  simplicity 
of  worship  and  of  organization,  as  Professor 
Lake  has  so  clearly  shown  in  a  noteworthy  con- 
tribution to  the  Harvard  Theological  Review^ 
and  to  which  I  gratefully  acknowledge  my  in- 
debtedness. Wherever  enthusiasm  is  genuine 
and  intense,  there  people  will  be  satisfied  with  a 
minimum  of  ceremonialism  and  church-regula- 

» April,  1912. 

98 


COMMUNITY   IN   JERUSALEM 

tions.  But,  once  let  there  be  felt  a  need  for  elab- 
orating the  simple  church-service  or  for  develop- 
ing ecclesiastical  organization,  and  it  is  a  sure 
sign  that  the  original  enthusiasm  has  begun  to 
cool  and  wane.  Thus  the  pronounced  simplic- 
ity and  democracy  of  government  and  of  wor- 
ship that  marked  the  religious  life  of  the  primi- 
tive community,  as  portrayed  in  the  Book  of 
Acts,  testifies  to  the  prevalence  of  intense  en- 
thusiasm, bom,  as  we  have  seen,  out  of  the  su- 
preme expectation  of  the  time.  There  was,  as 
yet,  no  such  institution  as  the  clergy.  Religious 
meetings  were  conducted  on  a  wholly  demo- 
cratic basis.  Whosoever  felt  moved  to  lead  in 
prayer,  or  in  the  reading  of  scripture,  or  in  the 
utterance  of  prophecy,  or  the  speaking  with 
tongues,  did  so  freely.  And  these  practices 
constituted  the  simple  elements  of  public  wor- 
ship. The  institution  of  the  clergy  came  with 
the  decline  of  enthusiasm,  as  this  in  turn  came 
with  disappointment  over  protracted  "delay  in 
the  Lord's  coming."  Again,  in  this  early  period 
of  Church  history,  under  the  spell  of  intense  en- 
thusiasm, no  formal  test  of  fellowship  was  im- 
posed on  persons  seeking  membership.  All  who 
were  enthusiastic  for  Jesus,  were,  ipso  facto, 
admitted  to  membership  in  the  community.    No 

99 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

one,  it  would  seem,  was  asked  to  "confess  Jesus 
as  Messiah"  or  to  submit  to  baptism  as  a  pledge 
of  that  confession.  Baptism,  we  are  led  to  be- 
lieve, was  still  only  a  symbol  of  purification,  of 
fitness  for  salvation,  not  a  test  of  fellowship,  or 
medium  for  separating  Jews  from  believers  in 
the  Messiahship  of  Jesus.^  Nor,  again,  was 
there,  as  yet,  any  Eucharist,  or  sacrament  of 
the  Lord's  Supper,  or  sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  but 
only  a  commemorative  meal,  an  "agape,"  or 
love-feast,  expressing  the  loving  union  of  the 
brethren  and  serving  both  as  a  social  occasion 
and  as  a  solemn,  symbolic  commemoration  of 
the  death  of  Jesus.^  The  conversion  of  this  into 
a  sacrament,  i.e.,  the  visible  sign  of  an  invisible 
grace,  came,  as  did  the  ecclesiastical  view  of 
baptism,  with  the  decline  of  enthusiasm  and  the 
consequent  sense  of  need  for  more  ceremonial. 
Jesus  had  recognized  but  one  test  of  fitness 
for  admission  to  the  coming  kingdom,  viz.,  char- 
acter, obedience  to  the  Divine  will.^  So  in  the 
community  at  Jerusalem  there  was  at  first  no 
other  test  of  fellowship.  To  be  enthusiastic  for 
Jesus  was  to  seek  to  live  in  his  spirit  and  do 
his  bidding  and  that  was  enough  to  warrant 

»  Acts  2:40-41.    « Acts  2:42. 
» Matt.  7:21;  12:50  et  passim. 
100 


COMMUNITY   IN    JERUSALEM 

member  ship.  But  soon  it  came  to  be  held  that 
to  live  in  his  spirit  was  impossible  except  as  one 
admitted  his  Messiahship ;  nay  more,  that  apart 
from  the  company  of  such  believers  there  was 
no  certainty  of  salvation  and  that  even  the  fin- 
est moral  living  was  of  no  account  save  as  a 
step  to  the  true  righteousness  attainable  only 
by  those  who  believed  Jesus  was  the  Messiah.^ 
Thus  with  the  decline  of  enthusiasm  super- 
induced by  the  non-appearance  of  the  expected 
Messiah,  there  came  an  increasing  disappear- 
ance of  democracy,  simplicity  and  spontaneity 
in  the  religious  practices  of  the  community  fol- 
lowed by  the  rise  of  a  clergy,  an  exclusive  test 
of  church  fellowship  and  the  "sacraments"  of 
Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper.  Similarly  in 
the  realm  of  church  government  a  correspond- 
ing change  took  place.  For,  a  community  liv- 
ing in  hourly  expectation  of  a  complete  and 
miraculous  transformation  of  society  will  be  in- 
different to  organization,  or  at  least  content 
with  the  least  possible  measure  of  government, 
whereas,  with  the  recession  of  this  expectation 
into  the  background  of  thought,  an  increasing 
sense  of  need  for  organization  will  be  felt. 
Hence  it  was  that  non-fulfilment  of  this  expecta- 

1  Acts  4:4;  16:30-33. 

8  101 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

tion  became — as  we  shall  see  more  fully  in  our 
discussion  of  the  Shepherd  of  Hennas — a  most 
important  factor  in  the  rise  and  development  of 
an  ecclesiastical  hierarchy.  What  we  have  to 
note  now  is  that  the  mainspring  of  the  original 
character  of  worship  and  government  in  the 
primitive  community  was  the  enthusiasm  gen- 
erated by  the  Messianic  belief  and  that  with  its 
gradual  decline  both  the  religious  services  and 
the  organization  lost  their  pristine  simplicity, 
taking  on  increasingly  elaborate  forms.  These 
Christian  institutions  once  established  they 
soon  became  stereotyped  and  standardized  as  a 
preventive  against  disintegration  and  dissolu- 
tion. The  individualism  that  found  expression 
in  the  free  yielding  to  the  operations  of  the 
Spirit  gave  way  to  the  larger  demands  of  the 
universal  church.  Already  in  the  period  of 
Paul's  ministry  we  have  evidence  of  this 
change,  witness  his  letter  to  the  Corinthians 
in  which  he  bids  them  bridle  their  enthusiasm 
and  subordinate  their  individual  inspirations  to 
the  cause  of  general  edification  of  the  church. 
And  only  twenty  years  later  the  Roman  Clem- 
ent, writing  to  this  same  community,  felt  con- 
strained to  insist  upon  the  preservation  of  or- 
der and  fulfilment  of  the  fixed  rules  and  regula- 

103 


COMMUNITY   IN   JERUSALEM 

tions  of  their  church.  "The  Master  commanded 
the  offerings  and  ministrations  to  be  arranged 
with  care  and  not  to  be  done  rashly  and  out  of 
order  but  at  fixed  times  and  seasons.  And 
where  and  when  he  would  have  them  performed 
he  himself  ordained  by  his  supreme  will.  They, 
therefore,  that  make  their  offerings  at  the  ap- 
pointed seasons  are  acceptable  and  blessed. 
Unto  the  high  priest  his  proper  services  have 
been  assigned,  and  to  the  priests  their  proper 
office  is  appointed,  and  upon  the  Levites  their 
proper  ministrations  are  laid.  The  layman  is 
bound  by  the  layman  ordinances.  They,  there- 
fore, who  do  anything  contrary  to  the  seemly 
arrangement  dictated  by  the  Master  receive 
death  as  the  penalty."  Thus  Christianity  be- 
came, as  was  Judaism  before  it,  a  religion  with 
prescribed  ordinances,  fixed  forms  of  worship 
and  of  belief,  exhibiting  the  influence  of  the  Ro- 
man genius  for  law  and  government  at  every 
stage  of  its  ecclesiastical  development. 

So  long  as  the  personnel  of  the  primitive  com- 
munity consisted  of  only  Palestinian  Jews,  all 
went  well;  the  administration  of  affairs  was 
conducted  harmoniously  and  with  no  cause  for 
complaint.  But  with  the  influx  of  Grecian  Jews, 
or  "Hellenists,"  as  they  are  called  in  the  margin 

103 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

of  the  Revised  Version  of  the  New  Testament, 
the  signs  of  discord  and  discontent  began  to  ap- 
pear. The  term  Hellenists  was  applied  to  Greek 
proselytes  to  Judaism  and  also  to  Jews  who  had 
been  bom  and  educated  outside  of  Palestine. 
They  spoke  Greek  and  were  naturally  influenced 
to  some  degree  by  Greek  culture  and  liberality 
of  thought.  Consequently  they  were  not  as 
strict  in  their  observance  of  Jewish  religious 
ordinances  as  were  their  Palestinian  brethren. 
Because  of  this  laxness  in  devotion  to  the  re- 
quirements of  the  Law  as  interpreted  in  Pales- 
tine these  Hellenists  were  despised  by  the  more 
conservative  Jews.  This  anti-Hellenistic  senti- 
ment had  its  roots  in  that  antipathy  to  all  things 
Greek,  which  was  first  felt  in  the  times  of  Alex- 
ander and  reached  an  unparalleled  pitch  of  in- 
tensity in  the  days  of  the  Maccabees,  when  An- 
tiochus  Epiphanes  attempted  to  force  Greek  cus- 
toms and  Greek  religion  on  the  subjugated  Jews. 
Thus  these  Hellenists,  though  Jews,  were  sus- 
pected and  disliked  by  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem, 
even  as  the  Hellenists,  by  reason  of  the  greater 
liberality  of  their  religious  attitude  and  spirit, 
resented  the  punctiliousness  and  provincialism 
of  their  stricter  brethren.  Hence  on  both  sides 
prejudice  obtained,  precluding  the  possibility  of 

104 


COMMUNITY   IN   JERUSALEM 

harmonious  relations  within  the  fellowship.  In- 
deed so  different  at  heart  was  the  typical  Greek 
from  the  typical  Pharisaic  Jew  that  when  they 
came  together  in  the  primitive  community, 
trouble  was  certain  to  arise.  And  it  arose  in 
connection  with  the  dispensing  of  alms  to  the 
poor.  Who  were  these  poor?  Some  were  mem- 
bers who  had  suffered  persecution  and  impris- 
onment for  their  confession  of  Jesus  as  the  Mes- 
siah and  who  were  now  without  means  of  sup- 
port. Some  were  young  people  exiled  from  their 
Jewish  homes  by  parents  who  disapproved  of 
their  association  with  this  sect  of  Judaism. 
Some  were  widows  who  abandoned  all  thoughts 
of  remarrying  because  of  their  belief  in  the 
speedy  coming  of  Jesus  and  the  kingdom.  Some 
were  orphaned  girls  who  for  the  same  reason 
entertained  no  thought  of  marriage  and,  like  the 
widows,  were  thus  dependent  on  the  community 
for  support. 

Ever  since  the  Babylonian  exile,  when  most  of 
those  who  returned  were  extremely  poor,  alms- 
giving had  taken  on  increasing  importance  as 
a  religious  duty.  As  evidence  of  this  we  have 
the  statements  in  the  Apocryphal  books  of 
Tobit  and  Ecclesiasticus  to  the  effect  that  alms 
"deliver  from  death"  and  "make  an  atonement 

105 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

for  sin."^  In  view  of  the  large  proportion  of 
poor  in  the  population  it  is  no  wonder  that  the 
apostles  found  themselves  unequal  to  the  task 
of  serving  the  community  in  the  double  capacity 
of  preachers  and  almoners. 

Small  wonder,  too,  that  some  members  of  the 
community  should  have  felt  themselves  neglect- 
ed in  the  distribution  of  alms.  Chief  among 
these  was  a  group  of  Hellenistic  widows  who 
complained  that  the  apostles  showed  favoritism 
to  the  Palestinian  widows  in  the  dispensing  of 
charity.  And  they  construed  the  alleged  neglect 
as  intentional,  not  realizing  the  tremendous  de- 
mands that  were  being  made  on  the  apostles  in 
their  capacity  both  as  preachers  and  as  almon- 
ers. Murmuring  among  themselves  over  the  fa- 
voritism shown  their  sisters  of  Palestinian 
birth,  these  Hellenistic  widows  caused  actual 
dissention  in  the  community.  Whereupon  the 
apostles,  with  judicious  haste,  called  a  meeting 
at  which  the  whole  question  of  the  treatment  of 
the  poor  in  the  community  was  discussed,  cul- 
minating in  the  appointment  of  a  committee  of 
seven  whose  exclusive  work  should  be  visiting 
the  fatherless  and  the  widows  and  dispensing 
the  charities  of  the  organization.^    All  that  was 

1  Tob.  3:10;  Eccles.  3:30.     » Acts  6:1-4. 
106 


COMMUNITY  IN   JERUSALEM 

required  of  the  committee  was  that  they  should 
be  men  of  good  reputation  equal  to  performing 
their  duties  with  wisdom  and  kindliness.  Note 
that  the  members  of  this  committee  are  not 
called  deacons,  but  simply  "The  Seven."  Yet 
here  in  this  narrative  it  is  that  the  traditional 
account  of  the  origin  of  the  order  of  deacons  in 
the  church  hierarchy  is  to  be  read,  albeit  the  offi- 
cial title  nowhere  appears  in  connection  with  the 
ministrations  of  these  seven.  As  for  the  "lay- 
ing on  of  hands"  this  ceremony  was  simply 
taken  over  from  Judaism  and  meant  not  a 
"conferring  of  the  Spirit" — for  they  were  sup- 
posed to  be  filled  with  the  Spirit  already,  as 
candidates — but  an  outward  symbol  whereby 
the  general  public  might  know  that  the  function 
of  almoners  had  been  intrusted  to  these  men. 
And  it  is  significant  that  the  seven  were  chosen 
by  the  whole  community,  thus  testifying  again 
to  the  prevalence  of  the  democratic  ideal. 
Moreover,  it  is  equally  noteworthy  that  most  of 
the  seven,  if  not  all,  were  Hellenists,^  thus  in- 
dicating a  genuine  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
apostles  to  disabuse  the  minds  of  disaffected 
members  that  such  a  thing  as  favoritism  ob- 
tained.   But  most  noteworthy  in  the  incident  of 

'Acts  6:5. 

107 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

the  Hellenistic  widows'  complaint  is  tlie  fact 
that  while  the  alleged  neglect  occasioned  dis- 
cord in  the  community  its  real  cause  lay  deeper 
and  remained  unhealed  by  the  appointment  of  a 
special  committee  on  charities.  That  deeper 
cause  was  the  fundamental  difference  between 
Jew  and  Greek  with  their  respective  inherit- 
ances and  prejudices.  Here  is  the  root  of  all  the 
future  development  of  the  Christian  Church. 
For,  it  was  these  Hellenists,  with  their  broad 
views  and  freer  spirit,  who  eventually  saved 
Christianity  from  the  narrowness  and  provin- 
cialism in  which  orthodox  Jews  would  have  held 
it  fast  as  a  sect  of  Judaism.  How  Christianity 
was  saved  from  this  impending  danger  and  how 
the  final  and  complete  break  with  Judaism  was 
effected— this  will  form  the  subject-matter  of 
the  next  lecture. 


A  CRISIS  IN   THE  EVOLUTION   OF  CHRISTIANITY 

In  their  efforts  to  convert  fellow-Jews  to 
belief  in  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  the  apostles 
were  confronted  with  the  task  of  reconciling 
that  belief  with  the  fact  of  the  crucifixion.  For, 
to  the  unconverted  Jews  a  crucified  Messiah 
was  a  contradiction  in  terms,  whereas  to  the 
apostles  it  was  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy  and 
of  Divine  fore-ordination.  True,  the  apostles 
themselves  were  for  a  time  stunned  by  the 
tragedy  of  the  cross  and  wholly  at  a  loss  to 
explain  it.  But  eventually  (as  we  have  seen^) 
they  arrived  at  the  conviction  that  their  Mas- 
ter could  not  remain  in  Sheol  with  all  the  rest 
of  the  dead;  he  must  somehow  have  escaped 
and  ascended  to  heaven  whence  he  would  re- 

'  See  the  chapter  on  "the  Resurrection"  in  the  "Life  of 
Jesus  in  the  Light  of  the  Higher  Criticism." 

109 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

turn  to  inaugurate  the  promised  kingdom  of 
God  and  thus  prove  himself  the  Messiah.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  apostles  addressed  themselves 
to  the  task  of  convincing  their  Jewish  brethren 
that  the  crucifixion  was  not,  as  they  thought,  a 
disproof  of  Jesus'  Messiahship ;  that  his  suffer- 
ing on  the  cross,  far  from  being  the  merited 
punishment  meted  out  to  an  impostor,  was  but 
the  fulfilment  of  God's  purpose  for  the  salva- 
tion of  men.  In  support  of  these  views  the  apos- 
tles turned  to  the  recorded  utterances  of  the  Old 
Testament  prophets,  more  especially  those  in 
the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah.  Here  the  ex- 
ilian prophet  described  "the  suffering  Servant  of 
Yahweh,"  "the  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted 
with  grief,  on  whom  God  had  laid  the  iniquity 
of  us  all  and  by  whose  stripes  we  are  healed;" 
the  seemingly  unwarranted  sufferings  of  an 
innocent  soul  having  for  their  purpose  the  ex- 
piation of  others'  guilt.  From  the  old  and  gen- 
erally accepted  notion  that  the  sinner's  suffering 
atoned  for  his  sin  it  was  but  a  step  to  the  con- 
ception of  vicarious  human  suffering.  Not  all 
the  Israelites  who  had  been  taken  captive  by 
Nebuchadrezzar  and  carried  off  to  Babylon 
were  wicked.  Some  of  those  exiled  ones  had 
remained  faithful  to  Yahweh  and  when  they 

110 


EVOLUTION   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

raised  the  question,  why  should  we  suffer  cap- 
tivity with  all  the  rest,  the  exilian  Isaiah  an- 
swered  by    saying   that    their    suffering   was 
vicarious.    It  paid  for  the  sins  of  their  fellow- 
exiles.   Let  the  pious  nucleus  of  the  nation  take 
comfort   in   knowing   that   through   their   un- 
merited sufferings  the  whole  nation  would  be 
brought  back  to  Yahweh.     Despised   and  re- 
jected of  men,  smitten  and  afflicted,  this  righte- 
ous remnant  of  the  nation,  personified  by  the 
prophet  as  "the  suffering  Servant  of  Yahweh," 
would  be  the  savior  of  the  nation  whose  purg- 
ing from  sin  must  be  achieved  before  at-one- 
ment  with  God  could  be  realized.  And  the  great- 
er the  righteousness  of  this  saving  remnant  the 
greater  the   efficacy   of  their   suffering   as   a 
means    of    national    redemption.      Hence    "it 
pleased  Yahweh  to   bruise   his   servant,"   be- 
cause of  its  redemptive  power.     And  the  suf- 
ferer, once  aware  of  the  beneficent  effect  of  his 
sacrifice,  tastes  its  fruit  and  is  satisfied.^    Such, 
in  brief,  was    the  theory  of  vicarious  suffering 
as  worked  out  by  a  great  Hebrew  thinker  in 
the  period  of  Jewish  subjugation  to  Babylonian 
and  Persian  rule.    Inheriting  Isaiah's  concep- 
tion of  vicarious  atonement  and  construing  his 

»Isa.  53:10-12. 

Ill 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

personification  of  Israel's  righteous  remnant  as 
an  allusion  to  Jesus,  the  apostles  found  in  the 
predictions  of  the  exilian  prophet  the  necessary 
quotations  wherewith  to  support  their  interpre- 
tation of  the  crucifixion.  Nor  was  their  view 
in  the  least  inconsistent  with  the  Levitical  legis- 
lation which  called  for  "the  shedding  of  blood" 
(the  life)  as  a  prerequisite  for  securing  at-one- 
ment  with  God.  For,  the  apostles  in  their 
reasoning  (and,  above  all,  Paul)  simply  changed 
the  nature  of  the  offering.  Instead  of  the  sacri- 
ficial lamb  that  was  to  be  slain,  the  blood  of 
Jesus,  the  Lamb  of  God,  had  been  shed,  a  sacri- 
fice so  transcendently  significant  as  to  make  the 
crucifixion  the  most  conclusive  proof  of  Jesus' 
Messiahship.  The  death  of  Jesus  was  not  for 
his  own  sins  but  for  those  of  others.  Far,  then, 
from  being  an  inexplicable  tragedy,  the  cruci- 
fixion was  a  divinely  ordained  means  whereby 
sinners  could  be  forgiven  and  saved  "from  the 
wrath  to  come."  It  remained  for  the  apostle 
Paul  to  enlarge  upon  this  doctrine  of  atone- 
ment, showing  that  since  moral  character  could 
be  transferred,  as  in  the  case  of  Abraham's 
righteousness,  so  that  of  Jesus  was  conceived  as 
transferable  to  those  who  believed  in  the  effi- 
cacy of  his  atoning  sacrifice.   Now,  side  by  side 

m 


EVOLUTION   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

with  this  theory  of  the  atoning  value  of  Jesus' 
death,  the  apostles  and  their  followers  held  that 
obedience  to  the  Jewish  Law  is  indispensable  to 
salvation.  It  had  not  yet  occurred  to  anyone 
that  if  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  on  the  cross  was 
an  adequate  means  of  salvation  then  all  further 
devotion  to  the  prescriptions  of  the  Law  as  a 
means  of  salvation  could  be  dispensed  with, 
particularly  such  requirements  as  those  of  cir- 
cumcision and  the  eating  of  "Kosher"  meat; 
practices  regarded  as  the  very  badge  of 
Judaism. 

Had  the  movement  away  from  Judaism 
stopped  here  at  this  dual  devotion  to  the  means 
of  salvation  (Jesus'  death  and  the  Law)  it  would 
have  scored  failure  in  its  endeavor  to  reach 
and  convert  Gentiles.  For,  they  had  no  interest 
in  the  Law.  Therefore  the  success  that  attended 
missionary  work  among  the  Gentiles  was  fun- 
damentally due  to  the  surrender  of  this  dual 
position  and  reliance  on  the  latter  source  of  salv- 
ation alone.  Nay  more,  instead  of  further 
development  toward  an  independent  religion  the 
movement  would  have  represented  more  than 
a  Messianic  sect  of  Judaism.  Before  Christian- 
ity could  come  into  existence  someone  had  to 
see  that  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  was  an  all-suf- 

113 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

ficing  means  of  salvation  and  meaningless  if 
obedience  to  the  Law  were  still  insisted  upon. 
The  man  who  grasped  the  logic  of  the  situation 
and  championed  exclusive  reliance  on  the  effi- 
cacy of  Jesus'  death  as  the  sole  source  of  salv- 
ation was  the  apostle  Paul.  This  was  at  once 
the  burden  of  his  theological  preaching  and  the 
commanding  theme  of  the  most  masterly  of  his 
epistles. 

Paul  was  bom  about  four  years  earlier  than 
Jesus  and,  like  him,  was  of  pure  Jewish  de- 
scent. He  called  himself  "a  Hebrew  of  the 
Hebrews,"  implying  thereby  that  no  Gentile 
blood  flowed  in  his  veins.  Tarsus,  the  city 
of  his  birth,  was  the  chief  commercial  center 
of  the  province  of  Cilicia,  in  Asia  Minor,  noted 
particularly  for  the  manufacture  of  a  coarse 
dark  sail-cloth,  made  from  the  hair  of  the  Cili- 
cian  goat  and  used  for  making  sailors'  clothes, 
sails  and  tents.  Here  Paul  learned  the  trade 
of  tent-making  (for  the  Jewish  Law  required 
every  boy  to  learn  a  trade),  and  though  he  be- 
came a  missionary  preacher,  the  acquisition 
of  this  practical  training  proved,  as  he  tells  us,^ 
most  serviceable  when  without  other  means  of 
livelihood.    In  the  autobiographical  portion  of 

II.  Cor.  4:12. 


EVOLUTION   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

his  letter  to  the  Galatians,  he  tells  us  that  he 
had  been  privileged  to  study  in  Jerusalem  un- 
der the  tutorship  of  Gamaliel,  grandson  of  the 
distinguished  Hillel,  a  doctor  of  the  Law,  ex- 
ceptionally versed  in  rabbinical  lore  and  in  the 
subtleties  of  scriptural  interpretation.  Just 
what  the  duration  of  this  tutelage  under  Gama- 
liel was  we  do  not  know.  On  the  other  hand 
it  is  certain  that  it  did  not  include  the  week  of 
Jesus*  ministry  in  the  Palestinian  capital,  be- 
cause, in  that  case,  Paul  would  have  seen  Jesus, 
whereas  he  expressly  tells  us  he  never  saw 
Jesus  except  in  a  vision.* 

In  an  Apocryphal  book,  "The  Acts  of  Paul  and 
Tecla,"  Paul  is  described  as  small  of  stature, 
bald-headed  and  hollow-eyed,  his  nose  some- 
what aquiline,  and  his  expression  "full  of  grace" 
— a  description  on  which  the  traditional  por- 
trait of  mediaeval  and  renaissance  art  was 
based.  Paul  styled  himself  not  only  a  "Hebrew 
of  the  Hebrews"  but  also  "a  Pharisee  of  the 
Pharisees,"^  intimating  thereby  that  he  was  a 
stickler  for  punctilious  observance  of  the  re- 
quirements of  the  Jewish  Law,  despite  his  Hel- 
lenism.   He  was  in  Jerusalem  on  the  occasion 

» I.  Cor.  9:1;  cf.  Acts  26:15  and  I.  Cor.  15:8. 
«  Acts  23:6;  26:5;  cf.  Phil.  3:5. 
115 


THE   DAWN    OF   CHRISTIANITY 

of  the  stoning  of  Stephen  and  assisted  the  per- 
secutors to  the  extent  of  keeping  their  coats 
while  the  death  of  the  martyr  was  being  accom- 
plished. He  lost  no  opportunity  to  manifest 
his  hatred  of  the  Messianic  community.  From 
his  letter  to  the  Galatians  we  learn  "how  that 
beyond  measure  he  persecuted  the  church  of 
God  and  wasted  it."  ^  In  the  eighth  chapter  of 
the  Book  of  Acts  we  are  told  that  he  "made 
havoc  of  the  church,  entering  into  every  house" 
and  dragging  forth  to  the  council  such  inmates 
as  were  suspected  of  believing  Jesus  to  be  the 
Messiah.  In  the  following  chapter  the  author 
tells  of  Paul  "breathing  out  threatenings  and 
slaughter  against  the  disciples  of  the  Lord" — 
like  a  war-horse  on  entering  the  battlefield. 
Immediately  after  Stephen's  death  there  oc- 
curred a  general  persecution  of  the  Messianic 
community  which  had  already  made  its  influence 
felt  in  the  regions  round  about  Judea  even  as 
far  as  Damascus  in  Syria.  Thither  Paul  went 
to  ferret  out  the  apostates  from  Judaism  and 
bring  them  back  to  Jerusalem  for  trial,  the  high 
priest  having  given  him  a  commission  to  make 
this  inquisitional  expedition.^  But  on  the  way 
to  Damascus  the  persecutor  had  an  experience 

1  Gal.  1:13.    ^  Acts  9:1-2. 

116 


EVOLUTION    OP    CHRISTIANITY 

which  transformed  him  into  a  champion  of  the 
cause  he  intended  to  destroy.  Three  different 
accounts  of  that  experience  are  found  in  the 
Book  of  Acts.  The  first  forms  part  of  the  his- 
torical narrative  of  the  book,  the  other  two  ap- 
pear as  parts  of  Paul's  addresses  to  the  people 
of  Jerusalem  (from  the  stairway  of  the  castle) 
and  to  King  Agrippa,  respectively.^  As  he  was 
nearing  Damascus  Paul  saw  a  light  in  the  sky, 
from  out  of  which  came  a  voice  saying,  "Saul, 
Saul,  why  dost  thou  persecute  mef '  And  Saul 
said,  "Who  art  thou,  Lord?"  And  the  voice 
replied,  "I  am  Jesus  whom  thou  persecutest ;  it 
is  hard  for  thee  to  kick  against  the  goad."  And 
immediately  he  became  blind  and  remained  so 
for  three  days,  his  friends,  who  were  with  him, 
but  "if/io  saw  nothing/'  leading  him  into  the  city. 
The  credibility  of  this  experience  on  the  way 
to  Damascus  is  well  attested  by  kindred  data 
from  the  field  of  psychology.-  But  what  par- 
ticularly concerns  us  is  an  adequate  and 
rational  explanation  of  the  experience.  And 
this  is  furnished  by  consulting  the  letters  of 
Paul,  more  especially  those  to  the  Galatians 

» Acts  9:3-19;  22:3  et  seq.;  26:9  et  seq. 

» See  e.g.,  the  illustrations  adduced  by  Prof.  James  in  his 
f  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience." 

9  117 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

and  Corinthians.  From  these  we  are  led  to 
interpret  the  story  of  his  conversion  in  terms 
of  the  following  facts.  First,  his  temperament 
was  neurotic;  addicted  to  visions,  trances, 
revelations.^  Several  times  does  the  author  of 
the  Book  of  Acts  make  mention  of  some  oppor- 
tune vision  as  determining  the  conduct  of  Paul, 
he  believing  it  to  have  been  divinely  sent. 
Second,  there  was  his  recollection  of  the  calm, 
serene,  trustful  expression  on  the  face  of  the  dy- 
ing Stephen.  Was  there  perhaps,  after  all,  truth 
in  what  he  stood  for  and  died  for?  How  else 
could  he  have  faced  death  with  such  tran- 
quillity and  utter  composure  of  heart  and  mind, 
with  no  word  on  his  lips  but  a  prayer  for 
his  enemies  bidding  God  "not  to  lay  this  sin 
to  their  charge."  Third,  the  long  journey 
of  one  hundred  and  thirty-six  miles  from 
Jerusalem  to  Damascus  gave  Paul  ample  op- 
portunity to  reflect  upon  his  career  as  a  per- 
secutor and  on  the  Messianic  convictions  of 
Stephen.  Could  it  be,  Paul  may  well  have 
thought,  that  these  "Nazarenes"  -  were  right, 
that  God  took  Jesus'  side  and  that  his  cruci- 
fixion was  in  truth  a  propitiation  for  the  sins 

iAct3  9:12;  22:17;  II.  Cor.  12:1-4. 
»Aots24:5. 

118 


EVOLUTION   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

of  Israel?  Fourth,  Paul's  use  of  the  common 
Greek  proverb,  "It  is  hard  for  thee  to  kick 
against  the  goad,"  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon 
the  causes  at  work  in  bringing  about  his  con- 
version. The  allusion  of  the  proverb  is  to  a 
feature  of  agricultural  life  still  observable  in 
oriental  countries.  The  farmer  who  drove  the 
ox  held  the  plough  by  the  right  hand  and,  in 
the  left,  a  pointed  stick  to  prod  or  goad  the 
animal  on.  And  when  he  pricked  the  ox  rather 
severely  the  ox  kicked  against  the  goad.  The 
meaning  of  the  proverb  applied  to  Paul's  ex- 
perience is  clear.  It  was  exceedingly  difficult 
for  him  to  suppress  (kick  against)  the  haunt- 
ing conviction  (goad)  that  Stephen  and  his 
fellow-Nazarenes  were  right  in  their  views  of 
Jesus.  So  difficult,  indeed,  did  it  become  for 
Paul  to  down  this  persistently  invading  belief, 
"to  kick  against  the  goad,"  that  at  last  he 
abandoned  the  effort.  Unable  to  stamp  out  the 
ever-recurring  conviction  it  finally  mastered 
him.  Thus,  for  this  man  of  nervous  tempera- 
ment, of  fervid,  impetuous  action,  governed 
often er  by  impulse  than  by  reasoned-out  con- 
viction, reaching  truth  by  flashes  of  insight 
rather  than  by  steady  searchings  of  careful 
inquiry,    the    long,    hard    struggle    ended    in 

119 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

the  episode  thrice  recorded  in  the  Book  of 
Acts. 

In  the  first  chapter  of  his  letter  to  the  Gala- 
tians  Paul  expressly  states  his  independence  of 
the  twelve  apostles  on  the  ground  that  his  gos- 
pel came  to  him  directly  "through  the  revela- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ."  And  in  his  first  letter 
to  the  Corinthians  he  reaffirms  his  apostleship 
on  the  ground  that  he  had  "seen  the  Lord,"  re- 
ferring to  the  "vision"  that  had  been  vouch- 
safed to  him. 

Clearly,  then,  he  became  converted  from  an 
orthodox  Jew  into  a  representative  of  Naza- 
renism  through  personal  experience,  having  be- 
come convinced  that  Jesus  had  been  "raised 
from  the  dead"  and  thereby  proved  himself  to 
be  the  Messiah.  And  this  conclusion  was  all 
the  more  readily  reached  because  of  that  inner 
conflict  of  which  he  tells  us  in  the  fourteenth 
chapter  of  his  letter  to  the  Romans.  Tormented 
by  the  warfare  in  himself,  between  the  spirit 
and  the  flesh,  he  could  not  but  be  impressed  by 
the  fact  that  the  Nazarenes,  and  more  particu- 
larly Stephen,  possessed  that  which  he  lacked, 
viz.,  spiritual  peace.  Small  wonder,  then,  that 
the  death  of  the  martyr  and  the  part  Paul  had 
taken  in  bringing  it  about  struck  him  at  last 

120 


EVOLUTION    OF    CHRISTIANITY 

with  a  sense  of  horror  and  shame.  Small  won- 
der, too,  that  a  man  of  his  temperament  should 
experience,  as  the  outcome  of  this  inner  strife, 
just  such  a  vision  as  the  author  of  the  Book 
of  Acts  reported. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  his  narrative,  as  far 
as  the  ninth  verse  of  the  thirteenth  chapter,  he 
uses  the  name  "Saul"  to  designate  the  con- 
verted persecutor,  but  here  it  is  remarked, 
parenthetically,  that  he  "is  also  called  Paul." 
Many  explanations  have  been  offered  for  this 
change  of  name.  The  context  suggests  that  in 
honor  of  the  conversion  of  Sergius  Paulus,  Saul 
took  the  name  Paul,  much  as  Scipio,  after  his 
conquest  of  Africa,  was  called  "Africanus." 
But  such  a  motive  is  scarcely  in  keeping  with 
the  character  of  the  apostle.  Much  more  likely 
it  is  that  the  new  name  was  given  him  by  Gen- 
tiles after  his  entrance  upon  missionary  work 
among  them.  For  Paulus  signifies  "little,"  and 
we  know  he  was  small  of  stature.^  And  by  as 
much  as  his  sjTnpathies  were  far  stronger  with 
them  than  with  Jews  it  was  but  natural  that  the 
name  "Paul"  should  have  eventually  replaced 
the  Hebrew  "Saul."  In  all  probability  the 
change  of  name  signified  the  change  of  sympa- 

ai.  Cor.  10:10 

131 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

thies,  experienced  after  his  entrance  upon  liis 
apostolic  mission.  The  narrator  of  the  story 
of  Paul  in  the  Book  of  Acts  informs  us  that 
soon  after  the  arrival  of  Paul  at  Damascus 
he  was  restored  to  sight,  endowed  with  "the 
Spirit"  and  baptized  by  Ananias,  a  member  of 
the  primitive  community  who  had  fled  from 
Jerusalem  on  the  occasion  of  the  general  per- 
secution there  in  the  year  34.  Obviously  we 
have  here  a  legendary  account  of  what  actually 
transpired,  or  perhaps  the  product  of  later 
reflection  incorporated  into  the  narrative.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  it  is  clear  from  Paul's  own 
testimony  that  he  did  not,  immediately  after 
his  conversion,  leave  Damascus  and  go  to  Jeru- 
salem, but  remained  in  the  neighborhood  in  the 
region  just  east  of  Syria,  a  retired  place  that 
would  commend  itself  as  offering  opportunity 
for  needed  self-examination  and  self -collection 
after  his  recent  transforming  experience. 
Surely  Paul  must  have  felt  it  imperative  to 
seclude  himself  in  order  that  he  might  become 
adjusted  to  the  new  religious  environment 
created  by  his  conversion.  How  long  he  re- 
mained in  retirement  and  what  the  course  of 
his  thinking  was  we  do  not  know.  Unhappily 
the  record  in  Acts  and  Paul's  own  statements  as 

122 


EVOLUTION    OF    CHRISTIANITY 

found  in  his  letter  to  the  Galatians  are  hope- 
lessly irreconcilable.^  Perhaps  the  actual 
course  of  events  was  as  follows :  After  a  period 
of  quiet  reflection  and  self-adjustment  to  the 
new  order  of  religious  beliefs,  Paul  preached  in 
the  synagogues  of  Damascus,  inevitably  arous- 
ing opposition  so  that  he  was  compelled  to  flee 
from  the  city,  going  directly  to  Jerusalem.  Here 
he  remained  for  two  weeks  as  Peter's  guest, 
meeting  besides  other  workers,  Barnabas,  a 
Greek-Jewish  convert  to  the  Messianic  beliefs  of 
the  community.  But  as  in  Damascus,  so  here  in 
Jerusalem  he,  by  his  disputations  engendered 
antipathy  among  the  Jews,  much  to  the  con- 
sternation of  the  apostles  who  successfully 
persuaded  him  to  leave  the  city.  Returning  to 
his  native  town,  Tarsus,  he  is  not  heard  of 
again  for  ten  years. 

If  now  we  ask,  just  what  was  involved  in  his 
conversion,  the  answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  It 
involved  above  all  else  a  new  view  of  the  cruci- 
fixion of  Jesus.  Prior  to  his  conversion,  the  cru- 
cifixion signified  the  just  punishment  inflicted  on 
an  impostor ;  now  it  meant  a  God-ordained  mode 
of  bringing  all  who  were  estranged  from  Him 
into  at-one-ment  with  Himself.     Sacrifice,  ac- 

1  Cf.  Acts  9:14-31  with  Gal.  1:16-18  and  11.  Cor.  2:32-33. 
123 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

cording  to  a  long-established  Jewish  conception, 
was  the  sole  medium  by  which  this  supreme 
desideratum  could  be  reached  and  the  supreme 
sacrifice  of  history  was  that  of  Jesus  on  the 
cross.  Again,  the  "vision"  on  the  way  to  Da- 
mascus made  Paul  certain  that  Jesus  had  risen 
"from  the  dead."  '  The  cross  and  the  resurrec- 
tion— these  were  the  cardinal  beliefs  that  now 
engaged  him,  together  with  the  corollary,  the 
Messiahship  of  Jesus. 

In  other  words,  his  conversion  involved  the 
transition  from  Judaism  to  Nazarenism,  if  so 
we  may  designate  the  position  of  the  primitive 
community  in  Jerusalem. 

But  now  we  have  to  ask  what  caused  him  to 
take  a  further  step  and  inaugurate  a  new  re- 
ligion? For  Nazarenism,  we  have  seen,  was 
merely  a  sect  of  Judaism.  What  was  it  that 
made  Paul  feel  dissatisfied  with  the  theological 
position  taken  by  the  primitive  community? 
What  was  it  that  led  him  to  dispense  with  the 
requirements  of  the  Jewish  Law  and  take  his 
stand  exclusively  on  faith  in  the  crucified  and 
risen  Christ  as  the  sole  and  all-sufficing  means 
of  salvation?    The  answer  is  furnished  by  re- 

1  See  my  "Life  of  Jesus,"  chap.  VII,  for  the  difference 
between  resurrection  jrom  the  dead  and  from  the  grave. 

124 


EVOLUTION    OF    CHRISTIANITY 

verting  to  that  woeful  spiritual  experience  of 
his  youth  and  early  manhood,  so  frankly  laid 
bare  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  his  epistle  to  the 
Romans.  A  most  painful  experience  it  was,  for 
there  is  no  physical  pain  to  be  compared  to  the 
stings  and  pangs  of  a  conscience  wounded  be- 
yond healing,  no  pain  like  that  which  comes  to 
a  man  when  he  climbs  up  into  the  heights  of 
his  nobler  nature  and  looks  down  with  sorrow- 
ful contempt  upon  his  baser  self.  Recall  the 
apostle's  confession  of  utter  wretchedness 
when  he  found  he  could  not  fulfil  the  Law  of 
Righteousness.  "For  we  know  that  the  law  is 
spiritual:  but  I  am  carnal,  sold  under  sin." 
Remember  that  in  Paul's  time  the  Pentateuchal 
rules  and  regulations  governing  the  conduct  of 
life  had  been  considerably  amplified  by  Tal- 
mudic  injunctions.  Educated  as  a  Pharisee, 
Paul  was  trained  to  be  scrupulously  faithful  to 
the  requirements  of  this  mass  of  ordinances. 
But  they  soon  proved  to  be  a  terrible  burden 
and  bondage,  albeit,  as  he  felt,  God  had  im- 
posed them  on  man  for  the  wise  purpose  of  sus- 
taining in  him  the  consciousness  of  sin.  Paul 
had  struggled  long  and  hard  to  satisfy  the  de- 
mands of  the  Law,  and  the  result  was  an  over- 
whelming  sense    of   moral   impotency.      Over 

125 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

and  against  the  Law  of  God,  as  revealed  in  the 
Pentateuch,  stood  the  promptings  of  the  flesh, 
bringing  man  into  captivity  to  the  law  of  sin 
which  is  in  his  members.  Who  shall  deliver 
him  from  this  slavery  to  sin,  who  endow  him 
with  moral  power  to  fulfil  the  Law  of  Righteous- 
ness, who  lift  him  from  his  dead  self  to  higher 
things?  Assuredly  but  one  person  can  be 
equal  to  the  fulfilment  of  so  august  a  function, 
one,  namely,  who  has  succeeded  where  he  had 
failed.  Only  such  an  one  can  give  the  needed 
help.  Is  there  such  a  person?  Reflecting  on 
this  question  Paul  ultimately  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  inasmuch  as  Jesus  had,  fulfilled 
the  Law  of  Righteousness  he  differed  from  all 
other  human  beings  in  kind  as  well  as  in  degree 
and  was,  in  truth,  the  Son  of  God,  endowed,  in 
a  preexistent  state,  with  a  peculiar  dignity, 
veiled  during  his  earthly  humiliation,  yet  evi- 
denced by  his  resurrection  from  the  dead;  a 
man  of  heavenly  origin,  he  was  one  who  had 
sacrificed  the  glory  of  being  with  the  Father 
who,  through  him,  was  now  reconciling  the 
world  to  Himself.^  Paul  did  not  trouble  his 
mind  with  the  source  of  this  Sonship;  that 
seemed   a   fruitless  speculation.     Enough  for 

»Gal.  4:4;  I.  Cor.  15:47;  Gal.  3:21 
126 


EVOLUTION   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

him  to  start  with  the  cross  and  the  resurrection 
and  let  all  else  be  inference.  From  the  crucified 
and  risen  Jesus,  the  preexistent  Messiah, 
who  will  shortly  appear  in  the  clouds  at- 
tended by  angels  and  come  down  to  usher  in 
the  heavenly  kingdom  on  earth,  from  him, 
Paul  thought,  he  could  borrow  the  righteous- 
ness needed  to  save  him  from  "the  wrath  to 
come." 

Just  here  it  will  be  worth  our  while  to  recall 
the  fundamental  difference  in  the  attitude  of 
Jesus  and  Paul  toward  the  moral  nature  of  man. 
Both  entertained  the  conviction  that  confession 
of  moral  imperfection  is  the  first  step  toward 
moral  progress.  But  whereas  Jesus  was  buoyed 
up  by  the  consciousness  of  boundless  possibili- 
ties for  improvement  resident  in  each  human 
soul,  Paul  was  overpowered  by  the  sense  of 
moral  impotency.  So  deep-seated  was  Jesus' 
belief  in  the  latent  moral  power  of  man  that  he 
could  bid  his  hearers  "be  perfect."  Paul,  on  the 
other  hand,  despairing  of  moral  progress, 
looked  for  a  righteousness  not  his  own  and  on 
which  he  could  draw.  Jesus,  surcharged  with 
the  feeling  of  unexhausted  spiritual  capacity  in 
human  souls,  preached  a  gospel  of  repentance 
and   moral  endeavor.     "Do   the  Divine  will," 

127 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

"strive  to  enter  in,"  "repent,"  is  his  ringing  ap- 
peal. Paul,  holding  that  man  is  inherently  evil, 
a  slave  to  sin,  constitutionally  incapacitated  for 
fulfilling  the  Law  of  Righteousness,  raised  the 
passionate  question,  "Who  can  endow  me  with 
what  I  do  not  and  cannot  possess!  Who  can 
lift  me  from  my  low  estate?  for  how  to  per- 
form that  which  is  good  I  know  not.  0 
wretched  man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me 
from  the  bondage  of  this  death?  I  thank  God 
through  Jesus  Christ." 

And  when  Paul  raised  the  further  question, 
"Hoiv  can  I  borrow  of  the  superabundant  right- 
eousness of  the  Christ?"  the  answer  was,  "by 
faith."  But  we  shall  miss  his  meaning  here  if 
we  construe  the  word  faith  as  having  primarily, 
or  chiefly,  an  intellectual  content.  On  the  con- 
trary, faith  meant  for  Paul  a  mystical  process 
of  achieving  at-one-ment  with  the  Christ. 
Again  and  again  in  his  letters  does  he  define  his 
conception  of  faith  as  a  fixing  of  one's  thought 
and  gaze  on  this  object  of  supreme  veneration, 
the  risen  Christ,  becoming  assimilated  to 
Him,  wrapping  oneself  about  with  Him,  as 
with  a  cloak,  letting  Him  so  dominate  thought, 
feeling  and  conduct  that  one  does  nothing 
of  oneself,  but  only  and  always  through  Him,  the 

128 


EVOLUTION   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

celestial,  archetypal,  exceptional,  divine  Man/ 
What  further  need,  then,  of  Levitical  sacri- 
fices, now  that  the  supreme  and  all- sufficing  sac- 
rifice has  been  made  ?  What  further  need  of  the 
Law,  now  that  this  Divine  grace  has  been  vouch- 
safed to  us,  whereby  we  are  saved  through 
faith?  Well  enough  for  the  little  boy  to  have  a 
companion-tutor  during  his  tender  years,  but 
once  old  enough  to  go  to  school,  let  him  be 
turned  over  to  the  master,  and  dispense  with  the 
pedagogue.  So  also  was  it  well  enough  for  the 
Jews  in  the  childhood-period  of  their  develop- 
ment to  have  had  the  Law — a  pedagogue;  but 
now  that  they  have  entered  on  the  manhood- 
stage,  let  the  Law  lead  them  to  the  Master 
Christ,  as  did  the  pedagogue  the  boy  to  the 
master  of  the  school.  Hence  Paul's  expression : 
"The  Law  was  our  pedagogue^  bringing  us  unto 
Christ  f"-"^  Having  discovered  by  actual  personal 
experience  that  he  could  not,  of  himself,  fulfil 
the  Law,  Paul  was  forced  to  ask,  "What  shall  I 
do  to  be  saved?"  And  he  found  an  answer  in 
this  theory  of  Jesus  as  the  "second  Adam,"  the 
preexistent  Messiah,  from  whose  superabund- 

iFor  typical  passages  consult:    Gal.  2:20;     Rom.  6:8; 
Rom.  13:14. 

2  Mistranslated  "schoolmaster."    '  Gal.  3:24. 

129 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

ant  righteousness  every  needy  soul  could, 
through  faith,  borrow,  and  whose  sacrifice  on 
the  cross  made  salvation  possible  for  all.  Thus 
did  Paul  complete  the  partial  break  with  Juda- 
ism effected  by  the  apostles  of  the  primitive 
community  and  create  a  new  religious  fellow- 
ship on  the  basis  of  belief  in  Jesus'  death  as 
the  sole  and  all-sufficing  means  of  salvation. 
For,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  apostles 
in  Jerusalem  never  went  the  length  of  Paul's 
argument  on  the  question  of  salvation.  They 
saw  no  necessity  of  dispensing  with  obedience 
to  the  Law.  They  never  construed  the  death  of 
Jesus  as  signifying  anything  more  than  a 
merely  supplemental  means  of  salvation.  To 
them  the  Law  was  still  the  supreme  considera- 
tion, indispensable  to  salvation.  They  knew 
that  Jesus  had  not  disregarded  the  Law.  How 
then  could  it  be  incumbent  on  his  disciples  to 
abrogate  it?  And  the  proof  of  this  radical  dif- 
ference between  their  viewpoint  and  that  of 
Paul  is  furnished  by  the  record  of  the  great 
controversy  which  occurred  at  Jerusalem  in  the 
year  51.  The  events  leading  up  to  this  contro- 
versy have  been  reported  in  the  Book  of  Acts 
and  in  Paul's  letter  to  the  Galatians.  Here, 
again,  the  narratives  are  somewhat  conflicting, 

130 


EVOLUTION   OP   CHRISTIANITY 

but  the  probable  sequence  of  events  may  be 
outlined  somewhat  in  this  fashion. 

During  the  decade  following  Paul's  return  to 
Tarsus  from  Jerusalem,  there  had  been  organ- 
ized at  Antioch  a  successful  Messianic  commun- 
ity. Antioch  was  the  chief  city  of  Syria  and 
ranked  next  to  Rome  and  Alexandria  among  the 
great  cities  of  the  then  known  world.  This 
Syrian  Church  had  been  formed  by  fugitives 
from  the  persecution  that  followed  the  death  of 
Stephen.  Here  a  liberal,  catholic  movement 
had  been  inaugurated,  making  the  Jerusalem 
church,  which  had  ministered  only  to  Jews, 
realize,  as  never  before,  that  the  gospel  must 
be  universalized,  that  Messiah's  heritage  must 
be  for  Gentiles  as  well  as  for  Jews.  Here  was 
a  church  with  a  distinct  consciousness  of  its 
independence  of  the  mother-church  at  Jerusa- 
lem, yet  on  altogether  friendly  terms  with  it. 
Hither  Paul  came  in  the  year  45,  in  response 
to  the  urgent  appeal  of  the  Jerusalem  authori- 
ties, conveyed  to  him  by  Barnabas,  the  Greek- 
Jewish  convert  whom  he  had  met  in  Jerusalem. 
And  now  the  center  of  religious  interest  shifts 
from  Jerusalem  to  Antioch  and  from  Jewish  to 
Gentile  converts.  The  name  "Christian,"  too,  is 
originated  and  as  a  nickname  wherewith  un- 

131 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

sympathetic  Gentiles,  mistaking  the  meaning  of 
the  word,  described  the  adherents  of  Paul's 
views/  Just  as  the  word  "Herodian"  is  derived 
from  Herod,  so,  thought  these  unconverted  Gen- 
tiles, "Christian"  is  derived  from  Christ  as  a 
proper  name.  But  Christ,  as  we  have  already 
observed,  is  only  the  Greek  equivalent  for  the 
Hebrew  Messiah,  meaning  the  "anointed  one." 
Hearing  Paul's  followers  speak  of  Christ  as 
their  Lord  they  supposed  the  reference  was  to 
the  name  of  a  person,  whereas  it  is  only  the 
title  of  an  office,  indicating  the  rank  of  Jesus  as 
monarch  of  the  heavenly  kingdom  soon  to  come 
on  the  earth.  Eventually  the  name  was  adopted 
by  the  Christians  themselves  as  a  badge  of  hon- 
or. The  notion  that  the  name  was  first  used  by 
Jews  is  untenable  because  they  certainly  would 
have  stultified  themselves  had  they  described 
the  Antioch  community  by  a  name  which  means 
"those  of  the  Messiah,"  which  the  members  as- 
suredly were  not  in  the  estimation  of  the  Jews. 
After  spending  a  most  successful  year  in  this 
new  field  of  labor  Paul  started  on  the  first  of 
a  series  of  missionary  tours,  going  through 
Cyprus  and  parts  of  Asia  Minor.  On  his  re- 
turn he  found  the  Antioch  church  in  great  com- 

» Acts  11:26. 

132 


EVOLUTION   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

motion.  The  mother-church,  learning  of  Paul's 
success,  became  suspicious  and  sent  a  delega- 
tion to  investigate  the  rumor  that  Greeks  were 
being  admitted  to  fellowship  in  the  Syrian 
church  without  first  being  circumcised  and  that 
Jews  and  Gentiles  were  sitting  together  at  ta- 
ble and  eating  the  same  food — practices  that  in- 
volved flagrant  violation  of  the  Levitical  Law. 
This  interference  on  the  part  of  the  parent  or- 
ganization was  strongly  resented  by  Paul  "and 
no  small  dissention  and  disputation  followed," 
as  he  himself  has  told  us.^  Indeed  it  was  found 
necessary  to  have  the  issue  settled  at  once.  In 
other  words,  a  crisis  had  occurred  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  Christianity.  Is  that  evolution  from 
Judaism  to  stop  at  the  inconsistent  position 
adopted  by  the  Jerusalem  apostles,  who  insisted 
on  obedience  to  the  Law  as  indispensable  to 
salvation,  notwithstanding  the  sacrifice  Jesus 
had  made  for  the  saving  of  souls ;  or  is  that  evo- 
lution to  proceed  to  the  only  logical  and  con- 
sistent view  of  salvation,  represented  by  the 
Apostle  to  the  Gentiles?  So  Paul  went  down  to 
Jerusalem  to  argue  the  question  out  with  Peter, 
James,  and  John,  the  chief  representatives  of 
the  mother-church.    Paul  took  the  ground:  (1) 

»Cor.  10:10,  11;  3:13,15. 

10  133 


THE    DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

that  if  circumcision  be  still  insisted  upon  as  a 
requisite  for  admission,  then  Jesus,  the  Christ, 
might  as  well  have  lived  on  instead  of  giving  his 
life  as  a  sacrifice  for  humanity;  (2)  that  the 
Old  Testament  could  no  longer  have  binding 
authority  since  Jesus  had  come  into  the  world ; 
(3)  that  Jews  and  Greeks  stood  on  a  level  of 
equality  in  the  community;  (4)  that  to  return  to 
Mosaic  rites  as  media  of  salvation  after  Jesus 
had  been  crucified  was  to  pass  from  freedom  to 
bondage  and,  finally  (5)  that  belief  in  Jesus  as 
the  sole  savior  of  mankind  is  all  that  could  be 
required  of  anyone  seeking  fellowship  in  the 
new  community. 

The  result  of  the  conference  was  a  compro- 
mise. It  was  agreed  that  the  Jerusalem  church 
should  hold  to  its  conservative  position  and 
that  Paul  should  minister  in  his  own  chosen 
way  to  the  church  at  Antioch  on  condition 
that  he  take  up  a  collection  to  aid  the  strug- 
gling Judean  churches.^  In  the  year  47, 
famine  fell  upon  this  district  and  the  Anti- 
och church  promptly  sent  relief,  Paul  and 
Barnabas  taking  money  to  the  Judean  sufferers. 
Thus  while  Paul  and  his  followers  at  Antioch 
were  sustaining  a  Christian  Church  in  disre- 

1  Gal.  2:10. 

134 


EVOLUTION   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

gard  of  Pentateuchal  ceremonialism,  Peter, 
James,  and  John  conducted  the  Jerusalem  or- 
ganization in  loyal  allegiance  to  the  ordinances 
of  the  Law.  Thus  the  real  issue  was  evaded, 
viz.,  Is  obedience  to  the  Law  essential  to  salva- 
tion? So  Paul  returned  to  Antioch  to  continue 
his  work  there  in  the  same  liberal  spirit  in  which 
he  had  begun.  A  second  missionary  journey  is 
soon  thereafter  undertaken,  this  time  chiefly  in 
Macedonia  and  Greece.  During  Paul's  absence, 
Peter,  wishing  to  show  that  no  ill-feeling  exists, 
visits  the  Antioch  brethren,  sits  with  them  at 
table  and  freely  partakes  of  their  food.  While 
fellowshipping  thus  with  the  Gentile  commun- 
ity, Peter  is  suddenly  surprised  by  the  advent 
of  fellow-members  from  Jerusalem.  On  seeing 
them  he  immediately  withdrew  from  the  Gentile 
circle  and  persuaded  Barnabas  to  withdraw 
also.  Just  then  Paul  returned  and  learning 
what  had  transpired,  his  indignation  was  roused 
to  an  extreme  pitch.  He  characterized  Peter's 
conduct  as  sheer  hypocrisy  and  "withstood  him 
to  the  face,"  saying,  "If  thou  being  a  Jew  livest 
after  the  manner  of  the  Gentiles  why  compellest 
thou  the  Gentiles  to  live  after  the  manner  of  the 
Jews  ?"  ^  In  other  words,  if  Peter's  Jewish  ways 

iQal.  2:4,  6,  9,  11,  14. 

135 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

are  not  necessary  for  fellowship  or  salvation, 
he  acts  the  part  of  a  hypocrite ;  if  they  are  neces- 
sary "then  has  Christ  died  in  vain."  Such  was 
the  cardinal  issue  involved  in  Paul's  remon- 
strance. The  crucifixion  is  meaningless  if  the 
Law  be  still  insisted  on  as  a  requisite  for  sal- 
vation. But  this  idea  was  new  to  Peter  who 
had  never  thought  out  the  logic  of  his  belief  in 
Jesus,  and  who  could  not  entertain  the  idea  that 
God  had  opened  a  new  door  to  salvation  other 
than  the  Law  of  Moses.  Paul,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  a  trained  thinker  and  saw  that  there 
could  be  no  permanency  in  the  compromise 
adopted  at  Jerusalem.  The  question  had  to  be 
definitely  settled.  Can  one  be  saved  without 
submission  to  Jewish  ceremonial?  To  have  peo- 
ple in  Palestine  believing  this  impossible  while 
others  of  the  same  fellowship  at  Antioch  be- 
lieved it  possible  was  obviously  doomed  to  di- 
vide the  household  of  faith,  all  the  more  so  as 
free-thinking,  liberal-minded  Greeks  would  not 
look  with  favor  either  on  the  acceptance  of 
Jewish  ceremonialism  or  on  the  illogical  posi- 
tion represented  by  the  Jerusalem  community. 
And  so,  while  Paul  and  his  fellow-workers 
were  spreading  Christianity  and  establishing 
churches  in  the  leading  centers  of  Asia  Minor, 

136 


EVOLUTION   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

Greece  and  Rome,  the  primitive  commmiity  was 
at  a  standstill  in  Jerusalem.  And  when,  in  the 
year  70,  Titus  besieged  the  city  and  burned  the 
temple,  the  primitive  community  was  left  with- 
out a  center  and  obliged  to  flee  to  Pella,  a 
Gentile  town  across  the  Jordan.  There  the 
organization  gradually  disintegrated  and  was 
heard  of  no  more.  Had  Paul  ignored  the 
Jerusalem  church  instead  of  coming  to  an  un- 
derstanding with  its  representatives  he  would 
have  jeopardized  his  own  success  and  the  cause 
for  which  he  stood.  Paul  was  wise  enough  to 
see  that  it  would  not  do  to  cut  loose  from  the 
traditions  of  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  associ- 
ated with  Jerusalem ;  wise  enough  also  to  recog- 
nize the  fact  that  the  Antioch  church  was  a 
step-child  of  the  mother-church.  Thus  he  se- 
cured for  the  new  religion  continuity  with  the 
past  while  proclaiming  it  a  religion  in  which 
there  was  neither  Jew  nor  Gentile,  neither  bond 
nor  free,  because  all  were  one  in  Christ  who 
made  the  atoning  sacrifice  in  the  benefits  of 
which  all  humanity  might  share. 


yi 

"the  shepheed"  of  hermas 

OR 
ADAPTATION  TO  RELIGIOUS  ENVIRONMENT 

We  have  seen  that  the  New  Testament  is 
fairly  saturated  with  the  Messianic  expectation, 
with  the  belief  that  the  then  existing  world 
would  soon  pass  away  and  be  replaced  by  a  new 
and  divinely  ordained  order  of  society,  the 
kingdom  of  God.  No  unbiased  reader  of  the 
New  Testament  books  can  fail  to  realize  that 
this  expectation  was  the  background  of  Chris- 
tian thinking  throughout  the  first  century  and 
a  half  of  our  era.  But  the  great  catastrophic 
change,  for  which  Jesus  and  his  disciples  so 
earnestly  waited,  did  not  come  as  they  believed 
it  would,  in  the  generation  to  which  they  be- 
longed. One  after  another  the  disciples  passed 
away  and  still  the  looked-for  transformation 
did  not  occur.  Day  after  day  the  fervent 
prayer  was  offered,  "Thy  kingdom  come,"  but 

138 


"THE    SHEPHEED"    OF    HERMAS 

in  vain.  Small  wonder,  then,  that  many  a  be- 
liever grew  weary  of  his  unanswered  prayers 
and  disappointed  hope.  Nor  is  there  anywhere 
in  the  New  Testament  a  more  touching  and 
pathetic  passage  than  that  which  we  read  in  the 
latest  of  its  books,  written  about  the  year  150, 
the  passage  in  which  the  unknown  author  cites 
the  mocking  inquiry  of  scoffers,  "Where  is  the 
promise  of  His  coming,  for,  since  the  fathers  fell 
asleep,  all  things  remain  as  they  were  from  the 
beginning?"  And  the  writer's  rejoinder  is  to  the 
effect  that  God  is  exceeding  patient  and  long- 
suffering  and  would  not  that  a  single  soul  be 
excluded  from  membership  in  the  coming  king- 
dom to  perish  in  the  impending  destruction  of 
the  world  that  is.  "Wait,"  therefore,  "possess 
your  souls  in  patience,"  for,  according  to  the 
Divine  reckoning,  "a  thousand  years  are  as  a 
day."  Marvel  not  that  Messiah-Jesus  has  not 
yet  come  and  abandon  not  faith  and  hope.* 
Gradually,  however,  in  actual  practice,  if  not 
in  attenuated  theory,  men  did  give  up  hope  and 
ceased  to  look  for  that  kingdom  in  which  sin, 
suffering,  poverty  and  death  would  be  no  more. 
They  addressed  themselves  to  the  vital  task  of 
adjustment    to    their    disappointment.      They 

,   » 11.  Peter  3:4  eUe? 

139 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

turned  to  shaping  their  civil  and  religious  life 
anew,  in  accordance  with  non-fulfilment  of  the 
Messianic  hope.  In  other  words,  the  failure  of 
Jesus  to  return,  as  expected,  created  a  new 
problem :  how  to  adapt  to  a  society  that  did  not 
undergo  transformation,  ethical  teachings,  a 
"way  of  living  and  forms  of  church  organiza- 
tion based  on  the  belief  that  this  metamorphosis 
was  close  at  hand.  In  our  study  of  the  primi- 
.tive  community  at  Jerusalem  we  saw  how  the 
life  of  the  members  was  literally  rooted  in  en- 
thusiasm over  the  coming  of  Jesus,  how  they 
lived,  then  and  there,  as  they  felt  they  were 
going  to  live  in  the  new  kingdom.  Under  the 
spell  of  that  enthusiasm  they  naturally  con- 
ducted their  religious  affairs  with  a  minimum 
of  ecclesiastical  machinery ;  they  dispensed  with 
official  and  formal  tests  of  fellowship,  admitting 
to  membership  all  who,  like  themselves,  were 
enthusiastic  for  Jesus  and  the  kingdom;  they 
spent  no  money  on  church-buildings  or  on  cere- 
monial appliances ;  they  took  no  thought  for  the 
morrow;  they  gave  freely  of  what  they  had  to 
the  poor  and  needy ;  they  who  were  single  were 
advised  to  remain  unmarried,  and  they  who  con- 
templated divorce,  to  abandon  the  thought. 
For,  why  engage  in  any  of  these  purposes,  see- 

140 


"THE   SHEPHERD"   OF   HERMAS 

ing  that  the  end  of  the  world  is  so  close  at  hand 
and  that  at  any  moment  Messiah-Jesus  may  ap- 
pear and  bring  in  the  perfect  Day?  What  jus- 
tification could  there  be  for  spending  time, 
money  and  labor  in  constructing  an  ecclesiasti- 
cal edifice,  or  in  organizing  an  ecclesiastical 
hierarchy  under  conditions  like  these?  But 
when,  after  a  century  of  watching  and  waiting, 
the  world  showed  no  signs  of  coming  to  an  end, 
there  arose  the  practical  problem  of  accommo- 
dating to  a  world  which  did  not  disappear,  a 
mode  of  living,  a  body  of  moral  precepts  and  a 
form  of  religious  organization,  all  designed  for  a 
temporary  order  of  society.  How  to  improve 
the  persisting  world,  now  that  the  miraculous 
establishment  of  a  new  one  seemed  increasingly 
unlikely;  how  to  make  the  vision  of  the  king- 
dom of  God  practical  and  helpful,  now  that  it 
seemed  doomed  to  remain  a  vision ;  how  to  make 
the  world  men  actually  lived  in  like  the  city  of 
their  dream ;  this  was  the  supreme  problem  con- 
fronting Christians  toward  the  middle  of  the 
second  century. 

Very  fortunate  we  are  in  possessing  a  book 
which  deals  directly  with  this  problem  and  the 
manner  in  which  it  was  solved;  a  book  that 
gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  process  of  adjustment 

141 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

as  it  was  worked  out  in  one  of  the  Western 
Churches,  the  Church  at  Rome.  Assuredly  no 
other  book,  issuing  from  the  middle  of  the  sec- 
ond century,  helps  us,  as  does  this  one,  to  un- 
derstand how  the  inevitable  changes  in  Chris- 
tian life,  doctrine,  and  organization,  consequent 
upon  non-fulfilment  of  the  Messianic  hope,  were 
brought  about.  Here  it  is  that  we  see  how 
the  primitive  Christian  theory  of  baptism  was 
modified  to  meet  the  requirements  of  a  society 
that  remained  unchanged;  how  the  democracy 
that  characterized  religious  assemblies  in  the 
first  century  gave  place  to  the  rulings  of  an 
"episcopacy,"  in  the  second;  how,  one  after  an- 
other, moral  and  religious  issues,  closed  for  a 
supposed  temporary  order  of  society,  were  later 
reopened  and  resettled  to  suit  the  situation  that 
confronted  sceptical  and  disappointed  Chris- 
tians. This  book  which  ranks  second  to  none  as 
a  source  of  information  on  this  crucial  period 
in  the  evolution  of  Christianity  is  "The  Shep- 
herd," of  Hermas. 

Hermas  was  an  emancipated  Roman  slave 
and  brother  of  Bishop*  Pius  of  Rome,  as  we 

*The  title  "  papa  "= father = pope,  was  not  applied  to  the 
bishop  at  Rome  as  head  of  the  church  and  hierarchy  until 
the  fifth  century,  by  Leo  I.  In  1073  Hildebrand  (Gregory 
VII)  forbade  the  use  of  the  title  by  any  other  than  the  Roman 

143 


"THE    SHEPHERD"    OF   HERMAS 

learn  from  the  "Muratorian"  canon.^  He  was, 
moreover,  a  "prophet"  ^  and  wrote,  as  he  be- 
lieved, mider  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  He 
claimed  to  speak  and  write  "by  revelation,"  to 
have  "the  gift  of  prophecy"  and  was  thus  in  the 
same  class  with  Agabus^  (who  predicted  a  fam- 
ine and  secured  assistance  from  the  church  at 
Antioch  for  the  suffering  brethren  in  Jerusa- 
lem) and  with  those  men  who  told  Paul  that  "in 
every  city  bonds  and  affliction  awaited  him." 

Hermas  found  his  chief  source  of  edification 
not,  as  we  might  suppose,  in  the  Scriptures,  but 
in  the  "angel  of  prophecy"  who,  in  the  guise  of 
a  shepherd,  accompanied  him.  Having  been 
converted  to  Christianity  from  the  Roman  re- 
ligion, he  had  little  familiarity  with  the  Old 
Testament;  indeed  he  quotes  from  it  but  once.* 
And  while  his  acquaintance  with  the  New  Tes- 
tament is  quite  marked,  especially  with  the  Epis- 
tle of  James  and  the  gospel-record,  it  is  signifi- 
cant that  he  avoids  the  names  "Jesus"  and 
"Christ,"  using  instead  "Son  of  God."  It  would 
seem  that,  like  Paul,  his  interest  was  not  so 

bishop.  Prior  to  the  fifth  century  it  had  been  used  to  signify 
the  bishop  of  any  Christian  church. 

1  See  Lecture  I,  p.  24.     ^  See  I.  Cor.  12:28.     « Acts  11 :28. 

<  Vis.  11:3. 

143 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

much  in  Jesus  the  Galilean  teacher  and  healer 
as  in  the  crucified  and  risen  Lord,  the  heavenly 
Man,  the  preexistent  Messiah.  And  though  the 
Fourth  Gospel  was  not  known  to  Hermas,  his 
conception  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  as  having  en- 
tered the  world  to  weed  out  the  transgressions 
of  men  and  bring  them  into  oneness  with  God 
is  quite  in  accord  with  what  we  read  there,  sug- 
gesting that  both  writers  drew  on  the  "Wis- 
dom"^ literature  of  the  "Apocrypha,"  in  which 
the  germ  of  the  conception  appears. 

"The  Shepherd"  was  written  in  Greek  and, 
according  to  the  consensus  of  opinion,  close  to 
the  year  140.  The  book  is  an  apocalypse,  or 
book  of  revelations,  and  is  divided  into  three 
parts:  Visions,  Similitudes,  or  Parables,  and 
Mandates,  or  Commandments.  Though  entitled 
"The  Shepherd"  the  allusion  is  not,  as  might  be 
supposed,  to  Jesus.  In  the  fifth  of  his  Visions 
Hermas  explains  that  the  shepherd  is  an  angel, 
"the  angel  of  repentance,"  who  came  to  him  in 
the  guise  of  a  shepherd,  to  serve  as  his  spiritual 
guide,  to  advise  him  touching  the  requirements 
of  Christian  life  and  to  interpret  for  him  his 
Visions.  "After  I  had  been  praying  there  en- 
tered a  man  of  glorious  aspect,  dressed  like  a 

»Wisd.  of  Sol.  7:23-27. 

144 


"THE   SHEPHERD"   OF   HERMAS 

shepherd,  with  a  white  goat^s  skin,  a  wallet  on 
his  shoulders  and  a  rod  in  his  hand,  and  saluted 
me.  I  returned  his  salutation.  And  straight- 
way he  sat  down  beside  me  and  said:  *I  have 
been  sent  by  a  most  venerable  angel  to  dwell 
with  you  the  remaining  days  of  your  life ;  I  am 
that  shepherd  to  whom  you  have  been  in- 
trusted.' And  while  he  yet  spoke  his  figure  was 
changed,  and  then  I  knew  it  was  he  to  whom  I 
had  been  intrusted.  And  straightway  I  became 
confused  and  fear  took  hold  of  me.  But  he  said 
to  me:  'Do  not  be  confounded,  but  receive 
strength  from  the  commandments  which  I  am 
going  to  give  you.  Write  down  my  command- 
ments and  similitudes  that  you  may  be  able  to 
read  them  and  to  keep  them.*  Then  I  wrote 
down  exactly  as  he  had  ordered  me.  All  these 
words  did  the  shepherd,  even  the  angel  of  re- 
pentance, command  me  to  write."  ^  Thus  the 
part  played  by  the  Shepherd  in  this  Apocalypse 
was  not  unlike  that  of  Virgil  in  the  Divine  Com- 
edy. The  book  bears  some  resemblance  to  Bun- 
yan's  "Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  the  same  popu- 
larity which  that  allegorical  work  enjoyed  in 
the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  was  ac- 
corded "The  Shepherd"  in  the  third  and  fourth 
»Vi8.V. 

145 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

centuries — witness,  for  example,  the  warm  de- 
bates between  Tertullian  and  his  contempora- 
ries over  the  right  of  this  book  to  be  regarded 
as  "scripture." 

For  a  long  time  it  was  supposed  that  the  au- 
thor of  this  primitive  Christian  allegoiy  was 
the  Hermas  mentioned  by  Paul  in  his  letter  to 
the  Romans.^  And  because  of  the  assumption 
that  it  was  written  by  a  co-worker  of  Paul  the 
book  acquired  a  canonical  value,  i.  e.,  it  was 
ranked  as  scripture,  as  religious  literature  suit- 
able for  public  reading  in  church.  In  other 
words,  it  met  that  test  of  apostolic  origin  which, 
as  we  have  already  seen,^  determined  the  right 
of  a  book  to  a  place  in  the  "canon"  of  scripture. 
And  since  the  gospels  of  Mark  and  Luke  and 
the  epistles  of  Paul,  though  not  strictly  of  apos- 
tolic origin,  were  yet  admitted  because  of  the 
loose  construction  put  upon  that  standard,  so 
"The  Shepherd,"  by  reason  of  its  supposed 
Pauline  relation,  was  incorporated  in  the  canon. 
So  distinguished  a  representative  of  early 
Christianity  as  Irenaeus,  bishop  of  Lyons,  re- 
garded the  book  as  inspired  and  quoted  from  it 
as  of  equal  rank  with  the  gospels.  Origen  and 
Clement    of   Alexandria   took   practically   the 

1  Rom.  16:14.    ^  See  Lecture  I,  p.  22. 
146 


"THE   SHEPHERD"  OF   HERMAS 

same  view,  as  did  also  the  compiler  of  the  "Si- 
naitic"  manuscript.  Here  we  find  "The  Shep- 
herd" placed  between  "Revelation"  and  the 
"Epistle  of  Barnabas,"  thus  proving  that  as  late 
as  the  year  350  the  present  make-up  of  the  New 
Testament  had  not  yet  been  decided  upon.  Nay, 
more,  so  popular  was  "The  Shepherd"  that  even 
after  the  official  ruling  of  Pope  Gelasius,  in 
405,  editions  of  the  New  Testament  continued 
to  appear  in  which  this  allegory  was  given  a 
place.  The  maker  of  the  "Muratorian"  canon 
considered  it  worthy  to  be  read  as  "edifying" 
but  not  as  "authoritative"  and  therefore  not 
to  be  ranked  among  the  prophets  "or  the  writ- 
ings of  the  apostles"  which,  in  his  judgment, 
were  truly  canonical  works. 

Hermas  was  at  once  a  progressive  thinker 
and  a  practical  reformer.  He  wished  to  lead 
the  faith  of  the  past  on  to  the  faith  of  the 
future,  to  effect  the  transition  from  the  beliefs 
and  practices  maintained  in  the  first  century, 
when  faith  in  the  speedy  advent  of  the  kingdom 
was  strong  and  glowing,  to  those  necessitated 
by  the  non-fulfilment  of  the  Messianic  hope. 
Especially  noteworthy  is  the  combination  of 
wisdom  and  skill  exliibited  by  Hermas  in  carry- 
ing out  his  purpose.    Like  other  practical  re- 

147 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

formers  he  realized  that  if  one  is  to  get  the  ear 
of  the  public  and  achieve  success  one  must  not 
attempt  too  much.  Enough  to  express  advanced 
ideas  in  old-fashioned  form  without  striving  to 
inake  the  language  fully  express  the  new  order 
of  thought.  In  the  words  of  Professor  Lake,  to 
whose  article  in  the  Harvard  Theological  Re- 
view reference  has  already  been  made,  "Human 
nature  will  often  listen  to  a  reformer  who  wishes 
to  change  either  the  appearance  or  the  sub- 
stance of  his  reform,  but  not  to  one  who  attacks 
both  simultaneously.  One  generation  alters  the 
substance,  but  leaves  the  appearance;  the  next 
sees  the  inconsistency  and  changes  the  appear- 
ance as  well.  It  takes  two  generations  to  com- 
plete the  process,  and  that  is  reform ;  if  the  at- 
tempt be  made  to  do  both  at  once,  it  becomes 
revolution."  No  one  can  read  "The  Shepherd" 
without  feeling  that  some  such  diagnosis  of  the 
conditions  on  which  progress  depends  must 
have  been  made  by  Hermas  before  he  broached 
his  new  ideas  on  baptism,  church  government 
and  other  vital  issues  of  his  day.  For,  instead 
of  clothing  his  thought  in  direct  forms  of  speech, 
he  resorts  to  a  long-established,  universally  ac- 
cepted and  eminently  popular  mode  of  literary 
expression,  the  apocalypse.    Enough  for  him  to 

148 


"THE    SHEPHERD"   OF    HERMAS 

present  the  new  order  of  thought  in  veiled  and 
visionary  form ;  let  the  next  generation  address 
itself  to  furnishing  explicit,  adequate,  unveiled 
modes  of  expression. 

See  how  tactfully  Hennas  proceeded  in  the 
task  he  set  himself  of  adapting  to  an  old  and  un- 
changed environment,  practices,  beliefs,  rites 
and  modes  of  church  organization  intended  for 
a  world  that  would  last  but  a  little  while.  Take, 
for  example,  the  rite  of  baptism  which,  for  the 
Christian,  was  at  once  a  symbol  and  a  means  of 
purification,  an  evidence  of  the  convert's  fit- 
ness for  membership  in  the  coming  kingdom 
and  the  guarantee  of  permanent  release  from 
sin,  because,  in  that  kingdom,  there  could  be  no 
sin.  That  Hermas  was  in  entire  accord  with 
this  theory  of  baptism  is  evidenced  in  the  ninth 
of  his  Similitudes.  Here  the  interpreting  shep- 
herd explains  to  him  his  vision  of  "the  tower 
founded  on  a  rock  in  the  midst  of  waters."  It 
represents  the  church,  while  the  stones  compos- 
ing it  are  the  new  chosen  people,  they  who  have 
been  brought  through  the  gate  (Messiah-Jesus) 
and  through  the  water  (baptism)  to  be  built  into 
the  tower.  Only  through  this  gate  can  they  who 
are  to  be  saved  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
"No  one  shall  enter  except  he  receive  (in  bap- 

11  149 


THE   DAWN   OP   CHRISTIANITY 

tism)  the  name  of  the  Son."^  Similarly  in  the 
third  of  the  "Visions"  we  read :  "Your  life  shall 
be  saved  by  water."  And  again  in  the  ninth 
Similitude  Hermas  declares  that  "before  a  man 
bears  the  name  of  the  Son  of  God  he  is  dead, 
but  after  he  receives  it  he  puts  off  mortality  and 
receives  life.  He  descends  into  the  water  dead, 
and  arises  from  it  alive;  for  till  he  receive  (the 
rite)  he  is  dead."  These  quotations  confirm  the 
statement  that  Hermas  shared  the  view  of  bap- 
tism current  in  the  second  century,  according  to 
which  that  rite  assures  admission  to  the  King- 
dom and  also  absolute  escape  from  sin.  In 
other  words,  these  early  Christians  had  dared 
"to  think  in  absolutes"  because  they  believed  the 
kingdom  was  very  near.  But  protracted  delay 
in  its  advent  gave  opportunity  for  the  discovery 
that  baptism  did  not,  of  necessity,  keep  a  man 
safe  from  sin.  And  this  discovery  was  all  the 
more  appalling  because  of  the  belief  that  sin 
committed  after  baptism  was  unforgivable.- 
Thus  there  arose  the  need  of  modifying  this 
view  of  baptism  which  had  been  formulated  on 
the  assumption  that  the  world  was  very  soon  to 
come  to  an  end.  They  who  had  been  baptized,  it 
was  thought,  would  not  have  time  to  sin,  let 

1  Sim.  9:12.    ^Heb.  6:4-6. 

150 


"THE   SHEPHERD"   OF   HERMAS 

alone  inclination.  Given  the  beneficent  influence 
of  the  rite,  sinlessness  could  be  guaranteed  for 
so  brief  an  interval  as  would  elapse  till  the  end 
of  the  world.  But  it  did  not  end.  An  unantici- 
pated situation  confronted  the  Christian  world, 
calling  for  adaptation  to  environment  of  a  rite 
designed  for  a  society  that  remained  unchanged. 
Thus  the  question  was  raised.  Are  these  unfor- 
tunates who  have  sinned  since  they  were  bap- 
tized doomed  to  live  on  without  hope  of  redemp- 
tion? and  Hermas  answers  in  terms  of  a  "reve- 
lation" made  to  him  by  the  shepherd-angel.  He 
has  revealed  to  Hermas  the  saving  truth  that 
God  in  His  infinite  mercy,  remembering  that  the 
powers  and  wiles  of  the  devil  are  very  great,  has 
vouchsafed  to  the  baptized  sinner  one  more  op- 
portunity to  repent  and  be  saved.  Thus  a  crisis 
in  the  development  of  Christian  theology  was 
successfully  met.  Nor  does  anything  more  con- 
clusively prove  the  important  place  held  by  bap- 
tism in  early  Christianity  than  the  fact  that 
Hermas  wrote  his  "Shepherd"  for  the  express 
purpose  of  setting  forth  this  act  of  Divine  be- 
neficence by  which  repentance  and  salvation 
were  made  possible  for  those  who,  after  bap- 
tism, had  fallen  from  grace.^    That  "revelation" 

iMand.  IV:3. 

151 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

served  to  adjust  to  conditions  as  they  were  in 
Hermas'  day  a  theory  of  baptism  designed  for 
an  order  of  society  that  was  soon  to  disappear. 
In  the  fourth  of  the  Mandates  Hermas  states 
both  the  old  accepted  view  of  baptism  and  the 
form  of  its  adjustment  to  the  observed  facts  of 
experience.  Says  Hermas  to  the  Shepherd, 
the  angel  of  repentance,  "I  have  heard,  sir,  that 
there  is  no  other  repentance  than  that  one  when 
we  went  down  into  the  water  and  received  re- 
mission of  our  former  sins."  But  the  angel, 
while  admitting  the  truth  of  the  statement,  ex- 
plains that  hereafter  one  extra  and  final  chance 
for  repentance  is  to  be  granted  to  those  who  sin 
after  their  baptism.  Replying  to  Hermas  the  an- 
gel said:  "That  was  sound  doctrine  which  you 
heard,  for  that  is  really  the  case.  For  he  who 
has  received  remission  of  his  sins  ought  not  to 
sin  any  more,  but  to  live  in  purity.  Since,  how- 
ever, you  inquire  diligently  in  all  things,  I  will 
point  out  this  also  to  you.  The  Lord,  knowing 
the  heart  and  foreknowing  all  things,  knew  the 
weakness  of  men  and  the  manifold  wiles  of  the 
devil,  that  he  would  inflict  some  evil  on  the  ser- 
vants of  God.  The  Lord,  therefore,  being  mer- 
ciful, has  had  mercy  on  the  work  of  His  hand 
and  has  set  repentance  for  them,  but  He  has 

153 


"THE   SHEPHERD"   OF   HERMAS 

intrusted  to  me  power  over  this  repentance. 
Therefore  I  say  unto  you,  if  anyone  is  tempted 
of  the  devil  and  sins  (after  baptism)  he  has  op- 
portunity to  repent  but  once."  And  Hermas 
said,  "Sir,  I  feel  that  life  has  come  back  to  me, 
for  I  know  I  shall  be  saved  if  in  future  I  sin  no 
more."^  Thus  Hermas,  without  surrendering 
the  popular  theory  of  baptism,  modified  it  to 
suit  a  situation  unprovided  for  in  the  accepted 
theory  of  baptism,  based  as  it  was  on  the  belief 
that  Messiah-Jesus  would  in  the  very  near  fu- 
ture return  and  thus  preclude  the  possibility  of 
baptized  persons  falling  again  into  sin. 

Until  Hermas  came  forward  with  this  revised 
view  of  baptism  it  had  grown  custmnary  for 
men  to  postpone  the  ceremony  as  long  as  pos- 
sible on  the  ground  that  sin  committed  after 
baptism  is  unforgivable.  But  some  delayed  the 
matter  too  long  and  died  without  being  baptized, 
thus  excluding  themselves  from  the  possibility 
of  admission  into  the  new  kmgdom.  Hermas, 
therefore,  feels  called  upon  to  register  his  dis- 
approval of  such  deferment.  Of  these  people 
who  seek  to  avoid  the  responsibilities  of  baptism 
by  postponing  the  rite  he  says :  "Do  you  wish  to 
know  who  those  men  were  that  fell  near  to  the 

» Vis.  11:4. 

153 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

waters  (baptism),  but  could  not  be  rolled  into 
them?  These  are  they  who  heard  the  Word  and 
wished  to  be  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Lord, 
but  when  the  chastity  demanded  came  into  their 
recollection  they  drew  back  and  again  walked 
after  their  wicked  desires."  And  Hermas 
asked :  "Is  repentance  possible  to  these  that  have 
been  cast  away  and  do  not  fit  into  the  building 
of  the  tower  (church)  and  will  they  yet  have  a 
place  in  this  tower?"  To  which  the  answer  was 
given :  "Repentance  is  yet  possible,  but  in  this 
tower  they  cannot  find  a  suitable  place.  But  in 
another  and  far  inferior  place  they  will  be  laid, 
and  that,  too,  only  when  they  have  been  tortured 
and  completed  the  days  of  their  sins."^  Here  is 
a  conception  which,  as  Prof.  Lake  has  pointed 
out,  on  the  one  hand  led  to  development  of  the 
doctrine  of  purgatory  and,  on  the  other,  to  the 
practice  of  infant  baptism.^ 

Just  as  the  belief  that  sin  after  baptism  is 
unforgivable  led  to  the  postponement  of  the 
ceremony  with  a  view  to  escaping  the  danger 
involved,  so  the  belief  that  baptism  releases 
from  sin  led  to  the  pernicious  and  false  assump- 
tion that  once  baptized,  all  subsequent  conduct, 
however  unethical,  could  in  no  way  annul  the 

» Vis.  111:7    « Lake,  Op.  cit.,  p.  30. 
154 


*'THE   SHEPHERD"   OF   HERMAS 

saving  efiScacy  of  the  rite.  And  precisely  as 
Hermas  protested  against  the  former  error  so 
he  set  himself  in  opposition  to  the  latter,  repudi- 
ating and  denouncing  the  attitude  of  those  who 
sought  to  construe  baptism  as  devoid  of  direct 
relation  to  the  moral  life.  He  insists  that,  bound 
up  with  baptism,  as  an  inalienable  element,  is 
the  desire  and  endeavor  to  live  the  moral  life 
and  that  by  no  cunning  device  can  morality  be 
separated  from  religion.  Read  the  transparent 
allegory  in  which  Hermas  clothes  his  thought: 
He  sees  twelve  maidens  surrounding  the  tower 
and  the  shepherd  tells  him  they  are  "holy  spir- 
its" and  "that  no  man  can  be  found  in  the  king- 
dom except  they  clothe  him  in  their  raiment." 
For,  "if  a  man  receive  only  the  name  and  not  the 
raiment"  it  profits  him  nothing.  "These  maid- 
ens," he  continues,  "are  the  powers  of  the  Son 
of  God."  "If  thou  bear  the  name  but  bear  not 
the  power  of  God,  in  vain  shalt  thou  bear  the 
name.  The  stones  (members)  thou  sawest  cast 
away,  these  bare  only  the  name,  but  put  not 
on  the  clothing  of  the  maidens.  Whosoever 
beareth  the  name  of  the  Son  of  God  ought 
to  bear  also  the  names  of  these  maidens,  for 
their  names  are  their  raiment — Faith,  Conti- 
nency.    Strength,   Patience,    Simplicity,    Inno- 

155 


THE   DAWN  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

cence,  Purity,  Joy,  Truth,  Prudence,  Concord, 
Love."  1 

It  was,  then,  a  great  service  that  Hermas  ren- 
dered his  generation  at  a  critical  moment  of  its 
religious  life.  Obviously,  the  existing  theory  of 
baptism  had  to  be  adapted  to  the  needs  of  a  so- 
ciety which,  it  was  supposed,  would  pass  away, 
but  which  continued  as  it  had  been  "since  the 
fathers  fell  asleep."  Messiah-Jesus  did  not  re- 
turn, the  kingdom  did  not  come,  baptism  did 
not  secure  permanent  release  from  sin.  The 
plan  to  make  bad  men  absolutely  good,  at  a  sin- 
gle stroke,  by  baptism,  in  a  world  about  to  dis- 
appear, had  to  be  reshaped  into  an  attempt  to 
make  bad  men  better  in  a  world  that  showed  no 
signs  of  undergoing  the  expected  transforma- 
tion. A¥hereas  Christians  in  the  first  century 
expected  the  speedy  coming  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  based  their  theory  of  baptism,  as  re- 
leasing converts  from  sin,  upon  that  expecta- 
tion, the  Christians  of  the  second  century,  for 
whom  that  mighty  hope  had  waned,  found  that 
baptism  furnished  no  guarantee  of  sinlessness 
and  hence  were  obliged  so  to  adjust  their  theory 
that  it  would  accord  with  the  observed  facts, 
a  task  in  which  they  were  helped  by  Hermas  as 

^  Sim.  9:12. 

156 


"THE   SHEPHERD"   OF   HERMAS 

by  no  other  reformer  of  the  time.  By  submit- 
ting to  his  readers  the  consoling  revelation  of  a 
post-baptismal  opportunity  for  repentance  he 
held  out  hope  for  those  who  had  sinned  after 
their  conversion.  By  insisting  on  moral  con- 
duct as  an  indispensable  requisite  for  salvation 
and  exposing  the  fallacy  of  the  supposition  that 
baptism  assured  membership  in  the  Kingdom 
regardless  of  the  "raiment"  subsequently  worn, 
Hennas  infused  ethical  content  into  the  doc- 
trine. By  incorporating  into  his  allegory  his 
own  personal  struggle  to  live  the  moral  life  he 
strengthened  the  force  of  his  appeal,  particu- 
larly in  those  passages  that  relate  to  keeping 
oneself  free  from  sin  after  baptism,  a  task  that 
for  him  was  difficult  in  the  extreme.  His  imagi- 
nation, he  said,  was  given  to  evil  and  his  tongue 
could  not  always  tell  the  truth.  In  his  frank 
confessions  he  reminds  us  many  times  of  the 
seventh  chapter  in  Paul's  epistle  to  the  Romans. 
But  Hermas,  unlike  Paul,  relied  upon  the  higher 
nature  within  him  to  lead  him  in  the  paths  of 
righteousness.  For  he  went  so  far  as  to  symbol- 
ize his  higher  self  by  an  angel,  the  soul  of  all 
that  was  glad  and  good  and  strong  in  the  man. 
This  angel,  in  the  form  of  a  shepherd,  the  "an- 
gel of  repentance,"  it  was  who  told  him  he  could 

157 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

avoid  sin  if  only  he  fervently  resolved  so  to  do. 
And  his  Apocalypse  closes  with  the  picture  of 
a  pilgrim,  who,  despite  all  the  obstacles  that  be- 
set his  way,  presses  bravely  on  his  journey, 
cheered  by  the  conviction  that  God's  mercy  is 
abundant  unto  those  who  repent. 

As  a  further  illustration  of  the  way  in  which 
Hennas  adjusted  to  a  permanent  order  of  so- 
ciety what  was  enjoined  for  one  supposed  to 
pass  away,  let  me  cite  his  treatment  of  the  mar- 
riage and  divorce  question.  Paul  had  discour- 
aged the  man  who  put  away  his  adulterous  wife 
from  marrying  again  on  the  ground  that  the 
kingdom  is  coming  very  soon.  Therefore,  the 
time  being  short,  the  best  a  man  can  do  is  to  de- 
vote his  total  energy  to  preparation  for  en- 
trance into  the  new  order  of  society.  "Art  thou 
loosed  from  a  wife,  seek  not  another,  for,  breth- 
ren, the  time  is  short."^  But  the  expected  king- 
dom did  not  come.  On  the  contrary,  "all  things 
continued  as  they  were  from  the  beginning." 
Hence  a  new  and  adequate  reason  had  to  be 
given  those  who  entertained  the  idea  of  remar- 
rying. Hermas,  without  reflecting  in  the  least 
upon  the  credibility  of  Paul's  position,  fur- 
nished what  was  required.    The  rejected  wife, 

» I.  Cor.  7-27-29. 

158 


"THE   SHEPHERD"   OF   HERMAS 

he  said,  may  repent  of  her  sin,  and  the  husband 
should  therefore  not  remarry  but  anticipate  her 
repentance  and  let  her  return  to  him  when  she 
does  repent.  For,  continued  Hermas,  it  would 
be  a  grievous  sin  indeed  were  she  to  repent  and 
her  husband  not  be  in  a  position  to  receive  her 
again.  Nor  must  it  be  overlooked  that  what 
Hermas  says  on  this  subject  is  plainly  applied 
to  both  men  and  women.  The  passage  in  which 
he  discusses  this  point  reads  as  follows : 

"Sir,  if  anyone  has  a  wife  who  trusts  in  the 
Lord  and  if  he  detect  her  in  adultery,  does  the 
man  sin  if  he  continue  to  live  with  her?  And  he 
(the  shepherd-angel)  said  to  me,  'As  long  as  he 
remains  ignorant  of  her  sin  the  husband  com- 
mits no  transgression  in  living  with  her.  But 
if  the  husband  knows  his  wife  has  gone  astray 
and  if  the  woman  does  not  repent  but  persists  in 
her  fornication  and  yet  the  husband  continues 
to  live  with  her,  he  also  is  guilty  of  her  crime 
and  a  sharer  in  her  adultery.'  And  Hermas 
said,  'What,  then,  is  the  husband  to  do  if  his 
wife  continue  her  wicked  practices  T  And  the 
angel  said :  'The  husband  should  put  her  away 
and  remain  by  himself.  But  if  he  put  her  away 
and  marry  another  he  also  commits  adultery.' 
And  Hermas  said :  'What  if  the  woman  put  away 

159 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

should  repent  and  wish  to  return  to  her  hus- 
band; shall  she  not  be  taken  backf  'Assuredly,' 
said  he,  'if  the  husband  do  not  take  her  back 
he  sins,  for  he  ought  to  take  back  the  sinner 
who  has  repented,  but  not  frequently.  For 
there  is  but  one  repentance  to  the  servants  of 
God.  In  case,  therefore,  that  the  divorced  wife 
repent,  the  husband  ought  not  to  marry  another 
when  his  wife  has  been  put  away.  And  in  this 
matter  man  and  woman  are  to  be  treated  in  ex- 
actly the  same  way.'  "^ 

The  same  service  of  adjusting  to  existing 
conditions  what  was  intended  for  a  state  of  so- 
ciety supposed  to  be  only  temporary  appears 
again  in  the  contribution  of  Hermas  to  the  new 
problems  of  church  organization.  We  have 
seen  how  enthusiasm  over  the  expected  return 
of  Jesus  caused  the  primitive  community  at 
Jerusalem  to  manage  its  affairs  with  a  minimum 
of  government.  Simplicity  and  democracy  were 
its  conspicuous  marks ;  witness  the  way  in  which 
the  substitute  for  Judas  was  elected,  or  that  in 
which  the  appointment  of  seven  men  to  serve  as 
dispensers  of  charity  was  effected.  No  one  of 
the  apostles  stood  above  all  the  rest,  but  a  thor- 
oughly democratic  spirit  and  mode  of  procedure 

>  Mand.  IV:l-8. 

160 


"THE    SHEPHERD"    OF    HERMAS 

prevailed  among  them.  There  was,  in  truth,  no 
time  for  questions  of  priority,  or  rank,  or  de- 
tailed organization.  The  hour  of  the  coming  of 
Messiah- Jesus  was  so  near  at  hand  that  thought 
and  energy  had  to  be  expended  on  matters  of 
most  vital  moment,  such  as  preaching  repent- 
ance and  saving  the  largest  possible  number  of 
souls  in  the  brief  time  that  remained  before  the 
last  judgment  would  be  pronounced.  Accord- 
ingly we  observe  that  the  terms  presbyter,  elder, 
bishop  were  used  interchangeably  to  designate 
the  officer  who  supervised  the  affairs  of  a 
church.  There  was  as  yet  no  fixed  division  of 
functions.  Why  should  there  be,  seeing  that  the 
end  of  the  world  was  momentarily  expected? 
But,  as  year  after  year  passed  with  no  sign  of 
the  great  consummation  and  the  work  of  the 
churches  was  steadily  increasing,  it  became  ap- 
parent that  the  simple,  democratic  type  of  or- 
ganization intended  for  a  very  brief  period  was 
inadequate  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  sub-apos- 
tolic age  to  which  Hermas  belonged  and  which 
was  an  unexpected  continuation  of  the  preced- 
ing age.  Here  again,  then,  non-fulfilment  of  the 
Messianic  expectation  gave  rise  to  a  new  prob- 
lem. And,  again,  the  solution  emanated  from 
Hermas.    The  immediate  occasion  for  the  dis- 

161 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

placement  of  the  primitive  parity  of  position  by 
rank  and  distinctions  was  the  appearance  in  the 
community  of  "false  prophets,"  men  akin  to  the 
"smooth-talkers"  of  whom  Jeremiah  so  bitterly 
complained,  prophets  whose  prime  concern  was 
to  predict  only  what  would  please  their  patrons, 
men  whose  eyes  were  on  the  fee  rather  than  on 
the  truth.  The  questions  arose :  Why  are  there 
any  false  prophets?  How  can  you  tell  a  true 
from  a  false  prophet?  In  the  eleventh  Mandate 
we  have  the  answer  of  Hermas :  "He  (the  Shep- 
herd) pointed  out  to  me  some  men  sitting  on  a 
seat  and  one  on  a  chair.  And  he  says  to  me, 
*Do  you  see  the  persons  sitting  on  the  seat?'  'I 
do,  sir,'  said  I.  'These,'  says  he,  'are  the  faith- 
ful and  he  who  sits  on  the  chair  is  a  false 
prophet  ruining  the  minds  of  the  servants  of 
God.  It  is  the  doubters,  not  the  faithful,  that 
he  ruins.  These  doubters  go  to  him  as  to  a 
soothsayer,  and  he,  the  false  prophet,  not  hav- 
ing the  power  of  a  Divine  spirit  within  him,  an- 
swers them  according  to  their  wicked  desires. 
For,  being  empty  himself,  he  gives  empty  an- 
swers to  empty  inquirers ;  for  the  devil  fills  him 
with  his  own  spirit.  He  who  inquires  of  a  false 
prophet  is  an  idolater  and  devoid  of  the  truth 
and  foolish.     For  no  spirit  given  by  God  re- 

162 


"THE   SHEPHERD"   OF   HERMAS 

quires  to  be  asked  but  speaks  all  things  of  itself, 
for  it  proceeds  from  God.'  'How,  then,  sir,'  said 
I,  'will  a  man  know  which  of  them  is  a  prophet 
and  which  a  false  prophet!'  'I  will  tell  you,' 
said  he.  'Try  the  man  who  has  the  Divine  spirit 
by  his  life.  First,  he  who  has  the  Divine  spirit 
is  meek,  peaceable,  humble ;  he  refrains  from  all 
iniquity  and  contents  himself  with  fewer  wants 
than  those  of  other  men.  But  the  man  who 
seems  to  have  the  spirit  exalts  himself,  wishes 
to  have  the  first  seat,  is  bold,  impudent,  talka- 
tive, lives  in  the  midst  of  luxuries  and  takes  re- 
wards for  his  prophecies ;  and  if  he  does  not  se- 
cure remuneration  he  does  not  prophesy.'  "^ 

Hennas  held  that  both  types  are  inspired,  but 
that  the  sources  of  their  inspiration  are  differ- 
ent. The  false  prophets  have  the  wrong  kind. 
Theirs  issues  from  the  Devil  and  his  subordi- 
nate evil  spirits;  the  others,  from  God's  good 
spirits.  For  the  world  is  full  of  both  types  of 
spirits  and  the  evil  ones  are  ever  ready  to  take 
possession  of  prophets — a  belief  inherited  di- 
rectly from  Judaism  and  indirectly  from  Zoro- 
astrianism,  the  fountain  source  of  much  biblical 
angelology  and  demonology. 

As  to  detecting  the  difference  between  the 

1  Mand.  XI. 

163 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

true  and  the  false  prophets,  Hermas  advised 
"watching  their  behavior,"  a  means  of  differ- 
entiation which  had  already  been  published  in 
the  gospel  according  to  Matthew.  "Beware  of 
false  prophets  who  come  to  you  in  sheep's  cloth- 
ing but  inwardly  are  as  ravening  wolves,  full 
of  dead  men's  bones  and  all  uncleanness,"  "  By 
their  fruits  shall  ye  know  men."^  Similarly,  in 
the  Didache,-  a  document  contemporary  with 
"The  Shepherd,"  a  corresponding  conduct-test 
(for  apostles)  is  proposed.  The  way  to  tell  a 
true  from  a  false  apostle  is  by  observing  the 
length  of  his  stay  in  a  town  whither  he  has  gone 
to  preach.  His  business  as  a  missionary  is  to 
keep  moving,  to  carry  his  message  to  as  many 
places  as  possible.  If,  therefore,  he  remain 
more  than  two  nights  in  that  town  set  him  down 
a  false  apostle.^ 

But  there  remained  the  further  question, 
not  raised  by  Hermas:  Who  shall  judge  the 
conduct  of  prophets?  The  answer  had  al- 
ready been  given  by  Ignatius  and  by  Clement 
of  Rome,  viz.,  the  bishop,  or  presbyter — he  shall 
decide  which  prophets  are  true  and  which  false. 
Thus  the  need  of  solving  this  perplexing  prob- 
lem gave  rise  to  hierarchical  distinctions  des- 

1  Matt.  7 :15-20.    » See  Lecture  II,  p.  48.     » 11 :3  et  seq. 
164 


"THE    SHEPHERD"    OF    HERMAS 

tined  to  be  developed,  in  the  course  of  succeed- 
ing centuries,  into  the  Roman  papacy.    To  quote 
again  from  Professor  Lake:  "The  subjection  of 
prophets  to  bishops  was  the  beginning  of  that 
long  chapter  of  history  in  which  the  episcopacy 
became  not  only  the  administrative  arm  of  the 
church  but  the  tribunal  which  judged  the  qual- 
ity of,  men's  spiritual  life  and  the  accuracy  of 
their    theological    statements.'"     *     *     *    By 
investing  bishops   with   judiciary   power,   the 
problem  of  deciding  on  the  character  of  proph- 
ets was  solved  in  the  only  way  possible  at  a 
time  when  people  were  facing  a  variety  of  prac- 
tical issues,  all  of  which  sprang  from  non-fulfil- 
ment of  the  Messianic  expectation.    And  the  ex- 
ceptional value  and  interest  attaching  to  the 
apocalypse  of  Hermas  lies  in  the  light  that  it 
sheds  on  this  transitional  period  in  which  sec- 
ond-century Christians,  whose  enthusiasm  over 
the  coming  of  Messiah-Jesus  had  waned,  were 
seeking  to  adjust  to  the  society  in  which  they 
lived  doctrines  and  rules  intended  for  a  tran- 
sient world. 

» Op.  cit.,  p.  46. 


12 


VII 

THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL  AND  THE  SYNOPTICS' 

As  one  after  another  of  the  disciples,  the  per- 
sonal witnesses  to  the  life  and  work  of  Jesus, 
disappeared  and  as  year  after  year  fervent  ex- 
pectation of  the  Master's  return  cooled  and 
waned,  there  developed  among  his  followers  a 
feeling  of  anxiety  over  the  preservation  of  the 
traditions  concerning  him.  A  deepening  sense 
of  need  was  felt  for  some  written  record  of  the 
story  that  was  in  danger  of  being  forgotten. 
Accordingly,  about  the  year  70,  one  John  Mark 
undertook  to  give  formal  shape  to  the  "reminis- 
cences" he  had  received  from  the  disciple  Peter. 
During  the  next  decade  this  condensed  chron- 
icle, dealing  for  the  most  part  with  Jesus'  deeds, 
was  considerably  enlarged  and  enriched  by  fur- 
ther traditions,  more  especially  of  the  sayings 
of  Jesus  (logia),  transmitted  from  the  notes  of 

166 


FOURTH  GOSPEL   AND  SYNOPTICS 

the  disciple  Matthew  and  incorporated  into  his 
narrative  by  this  second  biographer.  Some 
twenty  years  later  a  third  biography  appeared, 
the  work  of  one  Luke,  who  carefully  sifted  the 
fragmentary  and  imperfect  material  at  his  dis- 
posal and  enriched  the  story  further  still  by  the 
addition  of  elements  not  embodied  in  the  two 
earlier  biographies.  Thus  by  the  year  100  or 
thereabouts  three  attempts  had  been  made  at 
reducing  to  written  form  a  connected  narrative 
of  the  tradition  concerning  Jesus.  And  all 
three,  though  easily  differentiated,  resemble 
each  other  to  so  great  a  degree  that  Griesbach, 
in  1774,  gave  them  the  name  "Synoptic"  to  in- 
dicate the  fact  of  parallel  passages,  furnishing 
a  common  view  of  Jesus'  life  and  work.  But  in 
the  second  century  the  story  took  on  fresh  ele- 
ments and  a  reinterpretation  to  prepare  it  for 
satisfactory  circulation  among  Greek-speaking 
and  Greek-thinking  converts  to  Christianity — 
an  interpretation  wholly  foreign  to  Palestinian 
modes  of  thought.  In  other  words,  the  original 
stream  of  tradition  became  impregnated  with 
the  soil  of  the  territory  through  which  it  flowed. 
Precisely  as  the  Mississippi  is  laden  with  detri- 
tus from  the  lands  through  which  it  runs,  lands 
far  removed  from  the  river's  source,  so  the 

167 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

water  of  life  that  had  its  rise  in  Galilean  springs 
at  the  beginning  of  our  era  became  commingled 
early  in  the  second  century  with  the  water  of 
life  supplied  by  Greek  philosophy,  Alexandrian 
allegorizing  and  other  collateral  streams  of 
speculation  and  lore.  The  practical  ethics,  the 
concrete  eschatology  and  the  gospel  of  philan- 
thropy which  constituted  the  primal  contribu- 
tion of  Jesus,  all  underwent  rehabilitation  in 
terms  of  Greek  metaphysical  thinking.  The  ob- 
jective Jesus  became  the  subjective  Christ,  the 
son  of  Joseph  and  Mary  was  transfigured  as  the 
preexistent  Lord  from  heaven,  temporarily  em- 
bodied on  earth,  destined  to  return  to  the  bosom 
of  the  Father  and  thereafter  to  persist  as  a  uni- 
versal, permanent  Comfort  and  Inspiration  for 
all  who  believe  in  his  unique  Sonship  and  func- 
tion. And  this  metaphysical  reinterpretation  of 
the  primitive  tradition,  published  during  the 
first  quarter  of  the  second  century,  took  its  place 
in  the  New  Testament  as  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

No  other  Bible  book  has  been  the  source  of 
such  prolonged  and  heated  controversy.  A  veri- 
table library  of  controversial  literature  there  is, 
devoted  exclusively  to  the  various  vexed  and 
open  questions  relating  .to  this  Gospel.  Nowhere 
has  the  higher  criticism  been  more  bitterly  re- 

168 


FOURTH  GOSPEL  AND  SYNOPTICS 

sented  than  in  the  field  of  Fourth-Gospel 
thought.  Yet  nowhere  has  the  criticism  been 
more  constructive  and  triumphant.  Many  who 
accept  the  decision  of  the  higher  criticism  con- 
cerning the  non-Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Penta- 
teuch stoutly  resist  its  verdict  on  the  non- 
apostolic  authorship  of  this  gospel.  Many  who 
acknowledge  the  composite  character  of  the  book 
of  Isaiah  repudiate  the  contention  that  the 
"Johannine"  literature  is  also  composite.  On 
the  other  hand,  this  same  higher  criticism — the 
dread  of  the  dogmatist,  the  delight  of  the  free- 
thinker, the  despair  of  the  ecclesiastic,  the  foe 
of  the  traditionalist,  the  friend  of  every  reverent 
seeker  after  truth — has  worked  out  many  results 
with  reference  to  this  gospel  on  which  suspected 
heretics  and  trusted  orthodox  scholars  agree. 

Concerning  its  authorship  we  unfortunately 
have  no  positive  knowledge  whatever.  All  we 
know  on  this  point  is  negative  in  its  nature.  We 
know  the  gospel  was  not  written  by  the  disciple 
whose  name  it  bears  and  with  whose  character 
the  Synoptics  have  acquainted  us.  There  he  ap- 
pears as  an  illiterate  fisherman,  a  man  of  in- 
temperate zeal,  a  "son  of  thunder,"  one  who 
tried  to  persuade  his  mother  to  prevail  upon 
Jesus  to  secure  a  seat  for  him  in  the  coming 

169 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

kingdom.  If,  then,  we  are  to  believe  that  this 
man  was  the  author  of  the  most  profound  and 
philosophical  book  in  the  New  Testament  we 
shall  have  to  assume  that  his  whole  nature  un- 
derwent a  complete  and  radical  change;  that, 
without  education,  he  became  an  adept  in  Greek 
philosophy,  the  Apocrypha  and  the  writings  of 
Philo ;  that  he  acquired  a  mastery  of  style  and 
a  vigor  of  expression  not  paralleled  elsewhere 
in  the  Bible ;  that  he  surpassed  Paul  in  scholar- 
ship and  exceeded  Philo  in  philosophical  pene- 
tration and  insight. 

We  know  also  that  this  gospel  was  not  writ- 
ten by  any  Palestinian  Jew  of  the  first  century, 
because  it  shows  an  unfamiliarity  with  places 
and  customs  that  would  have  been  impossible 
for  a  native  Jew.  The  author  shows  a  literary, 
not  a  personal,  acquaintance  with  the  geogra- 
phy and  ethnology  of  Palestine.*  He  was  a  Hel- 
lenist, a  Jew  born  and  reared  outside  of  Pales- 
tine. That  he  was  a  Jew  is  evidenced  by  his  use 
of  Aramaic  names,  such  as  "sabbatha,"  "Mes- 
sias,"  etc.  Moreover,  he  believed  that  "salva- 
tion is  of  the  Jews,"2  and  though  he  slights  the 
Mosaic  Law  he  yet  regards  the  Pentateuch  as 

»e.j7.,  11:51;  18:13. 
»4:22. 

170 


FOURTH   GOSPEL  AND  SYNOPTICS 

a  book  of  prophecy  *  and  holds  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  such  esteem  as  no  born  Gentile  would 
have  entertained.  Again,  so  radically  different 
is  the  subject-matter  of  this  gospel  from  what 
we  read  in  the  other  three  (as  we  shall  shortly 
see)  that  it  precludes  the  possibility  of  ascrib- 
ing to  it  any  apostolic  authorship.  No  disciple 
of  Jesus  could  have  entered  so  early  and  so  eas- 
ily into  the  spirit  and  content  of  Greek  Alexan- 
drian thought.  No  follower  of  Jesus  could  have 
survived  long  enough  into  the  second  century  to 
make  possible  the  grasp  and  presentation  in 
gospel  form  of  so  thoroughly  Hellenistic  a  work. 
In  the  appendix  to  the  gospel  (as  the  last  chap- 
ter has  been  called)  there  is  a  passage^  which 
seems  to  indicate  that  originally  the  gospel  ap- 
peared anonymously.  For  the  plain  purpose  of 
the  passage  is  to  claim  the  gospel  for  "the  be- 
loved disciple"  whom  tradition  has  identified 
(but  without  scriptural  warrant)  with  John. 
Internal  evidence,  then,  compels  the  conclusion 
that  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  unknown 
and  unknowable.  Nor  does  external  evidence 
give  us  occasion  to  modify  this  conclusion.  It 
is  in  the  writings  of  Irenaeus,  who  flourished 
about  the  year  170,  that  we  first  meet  with  the 

^0:35.    « 21:24. 

171 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

ascription  of  the  gospel  to  the  disciple  John. 
But  inasmuch  as  this  attribution  was  based  on 
the  misconception  of  a  passage  in  the  "Exposi- 
tions" of  Papias,  describing  John  (the  presby- 
ter) as  "a  disciple  of  the  Lord,"  the  testimony  of 
Irenacus  loses  its  validity.  Whether,  as  Har- 
nack  holds,  and  after  him  Bousset,  the  gospel 
was  written  by  this  John  of  Ephesus,  is  still  an 
open  question;  scholars  generally  are  not  yet 
agreed  upon  it.  But  since  both  internal  and  ex- 
ternal testimony  combine  to  disprove  the  tradi- 
tional view  of  the  gospel's  authorship  it  should 
be  spoken  of  not  as  "John's,"  but  rather  as  "the 
Fourth"  Gospel. 

Concerning  its  date  scholarship  is  still  some- 
what divided,  though  the  range  of  opinion  is 
not  as  wide  as  it  was  a  generation  ago.  The  pre- 
vailing tendency  today  is  to  place  the  date 
nearer  90  than  150,  yet  not  further  back  than 
110.  The  main  indications  of  date  within  the 
gospel  are,  first,  its  speculative,  philosophical 
character  as  contrasted  with  the  Synoptics; 
second,  the  suggestion  of  the  conflict  between 
the  Judaizing  and  Gentilizing  parties  in  the 
early  church  as  having  already  passed.*  Out- 
side the  gospel,  indices  of  date  are  furnished  by 

U0:16;  21:11. 

172 


FOURTH   GOSPEL   AND  SYNOPTICS 

the  following  facts.  The  earliest  undisputed 
references  to  the  gospel  are  found  in  the  works 
of  Irenasus  and  Theophilus  about  the  year  175. 
The  earlier  Fathers  of  the  church,  Justin  (150) 
and  Ignatius  (115),  though  familiar  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  "Logos,"  or  "Word,"  show  no 
acquaintance  with  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  in 
their  arguments  draw  only  upon  the  Synoptics 
for  authority.  So  also  Papias  (120)  and  Poly- 
carp  (100)  use  phrases  found  in  this  gospel,  but 
not  once  does  either  of  them  quote  from  it,  con- 
fining their  appeal  to  the  three  earlier  records. 
Again,  the  day  of  the  death  of  Jesus  is  made 
the  14th  of  Nisan,  as  against  the  15th  reported 
by  the  Synoptics — a  change  of  date  that  points 
to  the  "Easter"  controversy  which  raged  in  the 
churches  of  Asia  Minor  toward  the  middle  of 
the  second  century.  Prior  to  that  controversy 
no  one  would  have  felt  constrained  to  effect  this 
change  of  date.  It  grew  out  of  a  debated  theo- 
logical discussion  and  points  to  the  party  that 
wished  to  make  Jesus  himself  the  Paschal  Lamb 
of  the  world. 

To  sum  up  our  brief  discussion  of  the  author- 
ship and  date  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the  available 
evidence  points  to  a  Greek  Jew,  possibly  a  resi- 
dent of  Ephesus,  as  its  author  and  to  the  year 

173 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

120  as  approximately  the  date  of  its  composition. 

Every  thoughtful  reader  of  the  gospels  is  cer- 
tain to  be  impressed  by  the  many  and  radical 
differences  between  the  first  three  and  the 
fourth.  We  have,  indeed,  in  the  Synoptics  and 
the  Fourth  Gospel  two  distinct  portraits  of 
Jesus.  These  have  been  compared  to  the  biog- 
raphy of  Socrates  as  written  by  Xenophon  and 
by  Plato.  But  the  comparison  is  faulty  because 
the  two  cases  are  not  parallel.  Xenophon  and 
Plato  described  the  same  person,  and  though 
their  accounts  differ  in  many  particulars  they 
are  yet  complementary.  The  Synoptics  and  the 
Fourth  Gospel  do  not  portray  the  same  person, 
and  whatever  resemblances  the  two  sets  of  rec- 
ords may  reveal  they  yet  tend  to  neutralize  each 
other.  The  Synoptics  furnish  a  biography  of 
the  Man  of  Nazareth;  the  Fourth  Gospel  gives 
us,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  lecture,^  a  life  of 
Jesus  as  the  Logos,  or  "Word  made  flesh"  in  the 
person  of  Christ.  The  Synoptics  portray  a  hu- 
man Jesus  sympathetically  in  touch  with  the 
physically  and  morally  diseased;  the  Fourth 
Gospel  presents  a  mysterious  Divine  being, 
aloof  from  lepers  and  demons,  in  touch  with  the 
spiritually  elite.    The  Synoptics  contain  the  rec- 

»  See  pp.  198  et  seq. 

174 


FOURTH   GOSPEL  AND  SYNOPTICS 

ord  of  one  who  was  expected  to  return  as  the 
Messiah;  the  Fourth  Gospel,  of  one  who,  from 
the  beginning  of  creation,  dwelt  with  God  and 
stood  in  no  relation  to  the  Hebrew  Messianic 
ideal.  The  Synoptists  infer  from  the  life  and 
teaching  of  Jesus  what  his  character  was;  the 
Fourth  Gospel  begins  with  a  theory  of  his  per- 
son and  interprets  the  life  in  terms  of  that 
theory.  The  Synoptists  looked  on  Jesus  as  a 
man,  yet  differing  from  all  other  men  because 
of  his  matchless  purity,  poise  and  spiritual  in- 
sight. To  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
Jesus  was  not  a  man  at  all,  but  "the  "Word  made 
flesh"  for  a  brief  period  of  two  and  a  half  years 
and  differing  from  all  human  beings  because  of 
his  unique  origin.  No  one  but  he  could  say 
"He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father." 
Not  only  have  we  two  distinct  portraits  in 
these  two  sources  of  information,  but  also  two 
distinct  teacher-types  and  orders  of  thought — a 
feature  of  the  sources  which  separate  them  by 
an  impassable  gulf.  The  Jesus  of  the  Synop- 
tics is  an  engaging,  irresistible  teacher,  one  who 
makes  an  intensely  human  appeal,  because  he 
was  tempted  and  afflicted,  a  man  of  sorrows  and 
acquainted  with  grief ;  one  who  experienced  the 
agony  of  Gethsemane  and  the  sufferings  of  the 

175 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHEISTIANITY 

cross.  The  Jesus  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  not  a 
genial  and  winning  teacher  at  all,  but  rather  a 
solemn,  awe-inspiring  expositor ;  one  who  makes 
little  or  no  human  appeal,  for  he  knew  nothing 
of  temptation  and  such  suffering  as  he  experi- 
enced was  mitigated,  nay,  annulled,  by  knowl- 
edge of  "the  glory"  that  would  follow.  The  Syn- 
optists  have  reported  a  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
parables  and  short  homilies  on  practical  ethical 
problems ;  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  there  is  no  such 
sermon,  there  are  no  such  parables,  while  such 
discourses  as  have  been  reported  are  long,  elab- 
orate, involved  and  concerned  with  the  dignity, 
glory  and  Divine  origin  of  the  speaker,  the 
Logos-Jesus.  The  Jesus  of  the  Synoptics  says  to 
his  disciples,  "Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world" ;  the 
Jesus  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  says,  "I  am  the  light 
of  the  world."  The  former  speaks  of  immortal- 
ity ;  the  latter  claims  to  be  "the  resurrection  and 
the  life."  In  the  one,  truth  is  taught  and  a  way 
of  living  marked  out ;  in  the  other,  we  read :  "I 
am  the  Truth,  the  Way,  the  Life."  The  Jesus 
of  the  Synoptics  proffers  terms  of  salvation 
wholly  ethical  in  content — "the  tree  is  known 
by  its  fruits";  the  Jesus  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
imposes  a  theological  test — "belief  on  him 
whom  God  hath  sent."    And  though  this  "be- 

176 


FOURTH  GOSPEL   AND   SYNOPTICS 

lief"  contains  an  ethical  element,  it  neverthe- 
less involved  primarily  acceptance  of  a  theo- 
logical dogma.  And  just  as  the  former  sets 
forth  an  ethical  conception  of  love  as  the  spon- 
taneous, unselfish  outgoing  of  heart  and  will 
toward  all  men,  so  the  latter  makes  it  a  theo- 
logical grace,  a  special  sentiment  of  believer 
toward  believer,  the  mutual  considerateness  of 
members  of  the  same  household  of  faith  "sep- 
arated" from  the  rest  of  the  world.  Again,  in 
the  estimation  of  the  Synoptists  the  work  of 
Jesus  was  his  healing  and  teaching  and  even- 
tual inauguration  of  the  Kingdom  of  God;  to 
the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  the  work  of 
Jesus  consisted,  not  so  much  in  what  he  said 
or  did,  as  in  his  manifesting  himself,  showing 
forth,  in  himself,  as  the  incarnate  Logos,  "the 
glory  of  the  invisible  God." 

Once  more,  the  Synoptics  report  a  score  of 
miracles,  mostly  works  of  healing,  and  these  are 
performed  without  the  least  circumstance  and 
with  none  other  than  a  philanthropic  purpose. 
The  Fourth  Gospel  makes  mention  of  only 
seven  miracles,  mostly  of  a  stupendous  kind 
and  as  done  with  considerable  eclat,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Jesus'  enemies  and  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  displaying  his  power;  "signs,"  exhibit- 

177 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

ing  his  "glory,"  they  are,  rather  than  the  spon- 
taneous, irresistible  use  of  beneficent  power  for 
the  sake  of  suffering  souls.  In  that  most  stu- 
pendous of  all  recorded  miracles,  the  raising  of 
Lazarus,  Jesus  waits  till  his  friend  is  dead,  bur- 
ied and  the  marks  of  decomposition  have  set  in, 
before  responding  to  the  passionate  plea  of  the 
sisters  that  he  bring  their  brother  back  to  life. 
Why  this  delay  and  disregard  of  the  claims  of 
friendship  and  grief?  The  answer  is,  in  order 
to  enhance  the  splendor  of  the  miracle,  itself 
the  supreme  manifestation  of  the  glory  to  those 
who  would  believe.^  Nay,  more,  the  seven  mir- 
acles are  all  concrete  symbols  of  great  spiritual 
truths  and  the  explanation  of  each  is  given  in 
the  discourse  that  follows  it.  Only  the  Logos- 
Jesus  it  was  thought  could  have  done  such 
mighty  works.  Surely  here,  if  anywhere,  is 
evidence  that  he  was  the  eternal  son  of  God. 
So  felt  the  author  of  this  gospel  and  accord- 
ingly he  gave  a  conspicuous  place  to  these  mir- 
acles as  compared  with  the  place  the  miracle- 
narratives  in  the  Synoptics  hold. 

No  less  striking  than  these  differences  be- 
tween the  Synoptics  and  the  Fourth  Gospel,  on 
points  common  to  the  two  sources,  are  the  omis- 

1  John  11:11-45. 

178 


FOURTH  GOSPEL  AND   SYNOPTICS 

sions  from  the  latter  of  incidents  and  sayings 
reported  by  one  or  another  of  the  earlier  writ- 
ers. Itemizing  the  more  important  of  these  we 
find  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  contains  no  virgin- 
birth  story,  no  baptism,  no  temptation,  no  ac- 
count of  dealings  with  publicans  and  sinners, 
or  with  demoniacs  and  lepers,  no  beatitudes,  no 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  no  Lord's  Prayer,  no 
transfiguration,  no  entry  into  Jerusalem,  no 
Last  Supper  narrative,  no  allusion  to  any 
agony  in  the  garden,  no  suggestion  of  any  suf- 
fering on  the  cross,  no  statement  of  a  bodily 
resurrection,  or  of  an  ascension  into  heaven. 
How  shall  we  account  for  these  differences  and 
for  this  array  of  fourteen  omissions  from  the 
narrative  of  what  has  been  reported  by  earlier 
biographers  ?  Fortunately,  the  author  has  him- 
self furnished  the  key  to  an  understanding  of 
these  features  of  his  gospel.  In  the  prologue 
and,  again,  in  the  last  verse  of  the  last  chapter, 
he  tells  us  just  what  his  purpose  was  in  produc- 
ing this  book.  It  was  not,  as  we  might  think, 
to  offer  a  complete  and  properly  ordered  ac- 
count of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  but  to  present  a 
particular  view  of  his  person  and  life  as  "the 
Word  made  flesh."  Consequently  he  selected 
from  his  available  material  only  such  portions 

179 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

as  fitted  this  conception  of  Jesus  as  the  incar- 
nate Word,  the  Son  of  God.  These  he  set  forth 
in  a  new  garb  and  with  the  ulterior  aim  that 
men,  believing  Jesus  to  be  such  an  One,  "might 
have  life  through  his  name."  Whatever  parts 
of  the  tradition  failed  to  fit  in  with  this  con- 
ception of  the  Divine  sonship  of  Jesus  as  the 
incarnate  Logos,  the  author  discarded.  Here, 
then,  is  the  explanation  of  the  two  most  dis- 
tinctive features  of  his  Gospel,  its  differences 
from  the  Synoptics  and  its  omission  of  so  much 
that  they  contain.  To  elucidate  this  explana- 
tion further  we  have  only  to  ask,  for  example, 
what  need  had  our  author  of  a  virgin-birth 
story,  when,  prior  to  his  birth  in  time,  Jesus 
was  the  eternal  Son  of  God?  What  place  could 
there  be  in  this  narrative  for  the  legend  of 
the  temptation  when  it  concerned  the  eternal 
Son  of  God,  One  who  could  not  be  subjected  to 
any  moral  testings  whatsoever.*  How  could  the 
story  of  the  transfiguration  be  incorporated  in 
the  Fourth  Gospel  when  Jesus  as  the  incarnate 
Logos  had  been  invested  with  a  Divine  glory 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world?  In  the  words 
of  James  Martineau,  "The  Christology  of  this 
writer  is  no  longer  anthropological,  lifting  a 

» 20:31. 

180 


FOURTH  GOSPEL  AND  SYNOPTICS 

human  being  into  exaltation,  but  theological, 
bringing  a  Divine  being  into  incarnation.  We 
have  here  the  story  not  of  ascending  humanity 
but  of  descending  Divinity,  of  a  God  entering 
into  the  disguise  of  an  earthly  life  and,  when 
the  mantle  has  fallen,  reassuming  his  home  on 
high.  Accordingly,  the  Christ  of  this  gospel 
has  no  infancy,  no  youth  of  growing  wisdom,  no 
dawning  suspicion  of  a  sacred  call  mocked  by 
taunting  voices  from  the  desert,  no  deepening 
of  self-devotion  by  conflict  and  widening  of 
spiritual  affections  through  a  life  of  tender 
mercy.  Here  is  no  beginning  from  a  day  of 
small  things  with  few  disciples  who  scarce  know 
why  they  follow  him."^ 

Again,  as  the  incarnate  Logos,  as  the  Light- 
bringer,  how  could  he  associate  with  publicans 
and  sinners  and  be  regarded  as  having  come  to 
save  themf  Nay,  they,  by  their  own  inborn  dis- 
position, avoid  the  Light.  All  that  the  Logos- 
Jesus  can  do  is  to  manifest  himself  as  the  Son 
of  God  and  let  those  endowed  with  desire  to 
seek  the  Light  and  to  recognize  therein  the 
"Logos  made  flesh"  come  to  him  and  be  made 
one  with  him  and  with  God.  Not,  as  in  the 
Synoptics,  has  Jesus  come  to  save  sinners  by 

» Martineau:  "The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion,"  p.  425. 
13  181 


THE   DAWN  OF   CHRISTIANITY 

rousing  them  to  a  sense  of  sin  and  leading 
them  into  the  glad  consciousness  of  Divine  for- 
giveness. Rather  has  he  come  unto  "his  own," 
to  those  who  "believe  on  him"  and,  simply  by 
manifesting  himself  as  the  Logos  incarnate  to 
win  disbelievers  to  acceptance  of  him  as  "the 
Word  made  flesh."  Everywhere  in  the  Synop- 
tics the  emphasis  is  on  the  relation  of  Jesus  to 
sinners.  He  came  to  seek  and  save  that  which 
was  lost.  By  the  contagion  of  his  own  purity 
and  by  his  powerful  appeal,  through  parables 
and  other  media  of  exhortation,  Jesus  gave  men 
a  sense  of  the  Divine  forgiveness  and  raised 
them  from  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things. 
But  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  this  phase  of  Jesus* 
ministry  is  almost  wholly  wanting.  With  the 
single  exception  of  the  narrative  of  the  wom- 
an taken  in  adultery — an  interpolation — the 
Fourth  Gospel  gives  us  no  equivalent  to  what 
we  read  in  the  Synoptics  of  Jesus  as  the  friend 
of  sinners.  On  the  contrary,  it  presents  Jesus 
as  keeping  aloof  from  sinners.  Consequently 
this  gospel  reveals  a  wholly  different  concep- 
tion of  the  "saving"  work  of  Jesus.  Men  have 
been  given  the  opportunity  to  enter  "the 
Father's  house"  through  "the  door,"  the  Logos- 
Jesus.    To  refuse  to  enter  is  to  be  deprived  of 

182 


FOURTH  GOSPEL   AND   SYNOPTICS 

tlie  privileges  which  entrance  brings.  Sin, 
therefore,  according  to  the  author  of  this  gos- 
pel, is  simply  privation,  due  to  refusal  to  ac- 
cept what  the  Logos-Jesus  has  come  to  offer. 
Thus  the  saving  work  of  Jesus  consisted  in 
"giving  power  to  as  many  as  received  him  to  be- 
come the  sons  of  God,"^  or,  in  imparting  to  those 
who  were  constitutionally  disposed  to  welcome 
him  the  Life  he  himself  had  from  God.  Thus 
it  was  as  the  "Life-giver"  that  Jesus  was  the 
Savior. 

In  harmony  with  the  same  fundamental  the- 
ory of  Jesus'  person,  our  author  makes  the 
mode,  no  less  than  the  substance,  of  Jesus* 
speech  consonant  with  the  unique  dignity  and 
sublimity  of  his  position,  i.e.,  involved  dis- 
courses concerning  himself  take  the  place  of 
the  impersonal,  colloquial,  ethical  parables  and 
sermons  in  the  Synoptics.  Eeading  these  dis- 
courses we  feel  ourselves  in  quite  a  different 
atmosphere  from  that  of  the  Synoptic  ad- 
dresses. We  note  that  in  the  attempt  to  trans- 
late Jewish  ideas  into  the  language  of  Greek 
speculation  our  author  changed  their  connota- 
tion almost  beyond  recognition.  Only  to  a  very 
limited  degree  can  it  be  said  that  his  Greek  con- 

U:12. 

183 


THE   DAWN   OP    CHRISTIANITY 

ceptions  correspond  to  the  thoughts  of  Jesus; 
sometimes,  indeed,  they  appear  quite  foreign 
to  what  the  Galilean  stood  for. 

And  yet,  as  Professor  Scott  has  contended,  the 
Hellenic  form  employed  by  our  author  is  in 
some  respects  more  adequate  than  the  Jewish 
of  the  Synoptics  as  an  expression  of  Jesus' 
ideas.  "There  was  a  breadth  and  idealism  in 
the  thought  of  Jesus  which  transcended  the 
limits  imposed  on  him  by  the  Jewish  modes  of 
utterance.  We  cannot  but  feel  in  reading  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  that  he  had  sometimes  to 
overstrain  the  language  and  imagery  of  tradi- 
tional Hebrew  thought  in  order  to  find  expres- 
sion for  his  message.  The  ideas  of  the  Mes- 
siah and  the  kingdom  of  God  meant  infi- 
nitely more  to  the  mind  of  Jesus  than  the 
names  themselves  could  be  made  to  signify. 
The  Fourth  Evangelist,  when  he  breaks  with 
the  literal  tradition  and  substitutes  the  lan- 
guage of  Greek  reflection  for  the  actual  words 
employed  by  Jesus,  is  not  necessarily  unfaith- 
ful to  the  Master's  teaching.  On  the  contrary, 
though  the  speeches  he  records  have  no  histor- 
ical genuineness  as  they  stand,  yet  they  give 
true  expression  in  many  cases  to  the  intrinsic 
thought  of  Jesus.    There  were  elements  in  the 

184 


FOURTH   GOSPEL   AND   SYNOPTICS 

Gospel  message,  and  these  among  the  most  val- 
uable, which  could  not  come  to  their  own  until 
they  had  received  a  new  embodiment  in  Hellenic 
forms."^ 

Thus  while  the  primary  purpose  of  the  S}ti- 
optics  was  to  present  a  faithful  record  of  the 
facts  of  Jesus'  life  and  work,  that  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  was  to  interpret  the  older  record  in  the 
light  of  a  philosophical  idea  applied  to  Jesus. 
Hence  our  author  selected  only  those  facts  that 
fitted  his  special  interpretation.  And  so  it 
happened  that  whereas  the  Synoptists  reasoned 
from  the  actual  life  and  work  of  Jesus  to  his 
person,  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  re- 
versed this  method,  beginning  with  a  theory  of 
the  person  and  arguing  thence  to  the  life  and 
work  of  Jesus.  And  in  this  process  of  clothing 
the  Jesus  of  history  in  the  garb  of  the  Greek 
Logos  our  author  was  compelled  to  set  aside 
elements  of  the  Synoptic  narrative  that  we 
would  fain  preserve,  to  substitute  for  Jesus' 
moral  attributes  of  sympathy,  pity,  forgive- 
ness, and  trust  (which  the  Synoptics  regard  as 
the  marks  of  his  spiritual  greatness)  meta- 
physical attributes  usually  associated  with  God 
alone ;  to  replace  the  revelation,  through  Jesus, 

1 E.  F.  Scott:  "The  Fourth  Gospel,"  pp.  7-8. 
185 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

of  God's  providence  and  fatherhood,  by  a  reve- 
lation, through  the  Logos,  of  God's  absohite 
being  and  self-dependence ;  to  transform  simple 
works  of  healing  into  astounding  miracles  and 
simple  ethical  addresses  into  complicated  theo- 
logical disquisitions. 

It  remains  to  ask :  What  were  the  sources  upon 
which  our  author  drew  for  the  preparation  of 
his  gospel?  That  he  had  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
before  him  as  his  main  material  is  evidenced 
by  the  fact  that  he  follows  the  Synoptic  story 
throughout,  setting  before  the  reader  the  same 
general  picture  of  Jesus  as  the  teacher,  the 
worker  of  miracles  and  the  master  who  is  sur- 
rounded by  disciples  who  but  partially  under- 
stand his  mission  and  message.  Yet  every- 
where we  see  skilful  adaptation  of  the  earlier 
records  to  the  particular  purpose  the  author 
had  in  view,  together  with  that  heightening  of 
the  character  of  Jesus  which  the  author's  fund- 
amental idea  of  the  Logos,  as  adapted  to  Jesus, 
required.  Nay,  more,  we  observe  also  that  the 
main  incidents  in  the  career  of  Jesus  as  re- 
ported by  the  Synoptics  reappear,  in  modified 
form,  and  in  precisely  the  same  order.  Thus 
we  have  first,  the  introduction  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist into  the  story  and  the  assumption  of  his 

186 


FOURTH   GOSPEL   AND  SYNOPTICS 

work  by  Jesus;  then,  the  first  of  a  succession 
of  miracles,  performed  in  Galilee;  then,  con- 
troversy with  Scribes  and  Pharisees;  then,  the 
confession  of  Peter  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ, 
marking  off  the  Galilean  from  the  Judean  min- 
istry; and,  finally,  the  various  scenes  of  the 
Passion,  the  order  throughout  paralleling  what 
we  find  in  the  Synoptics,  but,  of  course,  with 
just  such  adaptations  to  the  author's  conception 
of  Jesus  as  we  should  expect.  He  is  presented 
at  the  very  outset  as  the  Messiah  and  as  having 
fore-knowledge  of  his  career.  The  healing- 
ministry  begins  with  the  Cana  miracle  and  im- 
mediately thereafter  the  center  of  activity  is 
Jerusalem.  Thus  while  keeping  fairly  close  to 
his  Synoptic  sources  the  author  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel  shapes  them  to  his  purpose  and  his  con- 
ception of  Jesus  as  the  incarnate  "Word.  In- 
deed we  may  go  further  and  maintain  that  the 
gospel  according  to  Mark  was  the  primary 
source  our  author  employed,  for  he  follows  it 
very  closely  and  several  times  quotes  from  it 
verbatim.  "With  the  gospel  according  to  Mat- 
thew he  shows  some  acquaintance,  but,  by  rea- 
son of  its  pronounced  Judaizing  tone  and  color, 
he  could  not  have  been  strongly  attracted  to  it. 
Portions  of  the  gospel  according  to  Luke  he 

187 


THE   DAWN    OF    CHRISTIANITY 

seems  to  have  recast  in  the  mould  of  his  funda- 
mental thought,  illustrated  for  instance  by  the 
treatment  of  the  narrative  of  the  healing  mir- 
acles. For  while  in  Luke's  gospel  the  stress  is 
laid  on  the  jDossession  of  faith  by  the  person 
healed,  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  the  emphasis  is 
on  the  magnitude  of  the  miracle.^  In  addition 
to  these  three  gospels  our  author  must  have 
had  access  to  still  other  sources.  For  we  find  in 
his  gospel,  narratives  that  would  scarcely  have 
been  invented  for  expository  purposes,  but  must 
rather  have  been  incorporated  from  some  non- 
canonical  source.  Included  in  these  is  the  story 
of  the  Samaritan  woman  at  the  well,  with  whom 
Jesus  conversed  so  democratically  f  the  story  of 
the  woman  taken  in  adultery,  bringing  to  light 
the  infinite  sympathy  and  magnanimity  of 
Jesus  ;^  the  story  of  Jesus  washing  his  disci- 
ples' feet,  s;\Tnbolizing  the  secret  of  helpful  ser- 
vice;^ the  incident  of  Jesus,  on  the  cross,  com- 
mending his  mother  to  the  beloved  disciple.^ 
All  these  we  wish  to  believe  are  part  of  a  solid 
tradition,  yet  the  form  and  language  in  which 

1  Cf.  Luke  7:2  et  seq.  with  John  5:5  et  seq. 

^  4:6  et  seq. 

'8:1  et  seq. 

*lSAet  seq. 

« 19:25-26,  cf.  5:4;  also  Matt.  12:37-49. 

188 


FOURTH   GOSPEL   AND   SYNOPTICS 

they  have  been  narrated  make  it  impossible 
for  us  to  determine  what  measure  of  historical 
validity,  if  any,  they  have.  On  the  other  hand 
these  very  narratives  represent  that  portion  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel  which  has  ever  made  the 
strongest  appeal  to  Christian  readers,  because 
they  bear  witness  to  the  essential  greatness  of 
Jesus  far  more  than  do  the  metaphysically- 
grounded  discourses  or  the  self-glorifying  won- 
der-works. Yet  even  these  are  not  without 
their  deeper  significance  enshrining  the  inner- 
most spirit  of  Jesus  as  revealer  of  the  Father 
and  preparer  of  the  way  to  eternal  life  by  the 
manifestation  of  himself. 

In  view  of  all  that  has  been  said  of  the  re- 
lation of  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  the  Synoptics  it 
must  be  clear  that  its  author  employed  the  se- 
lective principle,  drawing  from  the  Synoptic 
story  only  such  elements  as  harmonized  with 
his  special  aim,  omitting  many  an  incident 
which  failed  to  fall  in  with  his  reinterpretation 
of  the  biography  in  terms  of  the  Logos  idea. 
And  inasmuch  as  the  Fourth  Gospel  did  not 
aim  to  present  a  life  of  the  historical  Jesus, 
but  rather  a  life  of  the  Logos  incarnate,  it  can- 
not serve  as  an  authentic  source  of  information 
concerning  the  real  Jesus.    We  are  inevitably 

189 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

forced  to  choose  between  it  and  the  Synoptics 
for  an  authoritative  account  of  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth. We  choose  the  latter  because  they  pur- 
port to  furnish  what  we  seek  and  because  we 
find  that,  as  a  whole,  their  record  is  reliable. 


VIII 

THE    PRIMITIVE   CHRISTIAN    MESSAGE   IN    TEEMS   OF 
GREEK   PHILOSOPHY 

We  saw  in  the  preceding  lecture  that  the 
author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  sought  to  make 
intelligible  to  the  Greek-speaking  people  for 
whom  he  wrote,  the  story  of  Jesus'  life  and 
work.  This,  in  his  judgment,  was  possible  only 
by  reinterpreting  the  narrative  in  terms  of  a 
doctrine  long  familiar  to  Greek  thinkers,  the 
doctrine  of  the  "Logos,"  or  Divine  Agent  in  the 
creating  of  the  world.  We  have  now  to  see 
what  this  doctrine  involved  and  how  our  au- 
thor made  use  of  it  in  the  task  he  had  set  him- 
self. At  the  time  when  his  gospel  was  written 
Christianity  had  been  separated  from  its  his- 
torical Jewish  origin  for  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury. The  great  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  had 
caused  the  center  of  Christian  activity  to  be 
transferred  from  Jerusalem  to  Antioch.    In  his 

191 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

missionary  labors  he  had  confined  his  attention 
to  setting  forth  his  theology  with  its  new  theory 
of  salvation.  He  had  made  but  scanty  allusion 
to  the  facts  of  Jesus'  earthly  life  which  to  him 
was  a  "humiliation"  and,  as  such,  overshad- 
owed by  his  crucifixion  and  resurrection,  the 
pivotal  points  in  Paul's  Christology.  If  then 
Christianity  was  to  perdure  as  a  vital  faith  in 
the  larger  world  to  which  it  had  been  intro- 
duced by  missionary  enterprise,  it  must  offer 
an  intelligible  account  of  the  historic  Jesus,  its 
fountain-source.  Simply  to  transmit  the  facts 
in  the  Jewish  modes  of  thought  presented  by  the 
Synoptic  writers  was  not  enough,  for,  the  facts 
could  not  be  understood  by  converts  trained  in 
Greek  ways  of  thinking.  If  the  personality  of 
Jesus  and  the  content  of  his  message  were  to 
be  life-giving  to  people  in  the  new  environment, 
they  must  be  interpreted  in  terms  familiar  to 
people  accustomed  to  Greek  modes  of  thought. 
Here,  then,  was  a  great  opportunity  to  meet  a 
vital,  pressing  need;  and  the  supreme  service 
rendered  by  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
lay  in  his  seizing  this  opportunity  and  present- 
ing the  needed  interpretation.  See  with  what 
practical  wisdom  he  addressed  himself  to  the 
task.     Realizing  that  it  would  not  do  to  be 

192 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

meticulously  cautious  about  repeating  the  sa- 
lient ideas  of  the  story  in  the  precise  foim  in 
which  they  were  known  to  Palestinian  Jews,  he 
takes  warranted  liberties  with  his  material.  To 
him  the  all-important  consideration  was  that 
these  Gentiles  should  understand  the  story  of 
Jesus.  So  our  author  essayed  the  task  of  re- 
interpretation  with  the  conviction  that  when  he 
deliberately  modified  recorded  statements  he 
was  most  loyal  to  his  function  as  an  interpreter 
and  propagandist.  Almost  parallel  to  his  wise 
and  tactful  mode  of  appeal  was  that  of  the 
Englishman  summoned  to  deliver  a  diplomatic 
message  to  an  official  of  the  Japanese  govern- 
ment. He  felt  that  it  would  be  best  to  present 
the  message  in  Japanese,  even  though  delivered 
to  him  in  English  and  that  instead  of  drafting 
a  literal  translation  of  its  actual  words  he  ought 
to  take  such  liberties  with  the  text  of  the  mes- 
sage as  would  insure  its  intelligibility.  For, 
the  original  English  statement,  excellent  in  it- 
self, had  the  serious  drawback  of  not  being  un- 
derstood by  him  for  whom  it  was  intended.  So 
the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  translated  Jew- 
ish thought  into  Greek  thought.  He  understood 
his  readers.  He  was  familiar  with  their  ways 
of  thinking  and  thus  he  was  enabled  to  bring 

193 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

them  the  primitive  Christian  message  in  a  form 
they  could  grasp  and  appreciate.  Let  us  then 
see  just  how  the  task  was  fulfilled,  how  the 
Synoptic  story,  with  its  distinctively  Jewish 
terminology  and  order  of  ideas,  was  trans- 
formed and  made  intelligible  to  the  Gentile 
world,  by  this  unknown  Hellenist.  To  him  was 
it  given  to  prepare  and  to  publish — outside  of 
Palestine,  perhaps  at  Ephesus,  the  birthplace 
of  Heraclitus  and  the  chief  seat  of  Paul's  mis- 
sionary labors — a  gospel  which  set  forth  the  life 
of  Jesus  in  its  eternal  meaning,  which  showed 
that  real  discipleship  was  a  possibility  for  all 
who  had  never  seen  or  heard  Jesus  and  who 
yet  believed  on  him;  which  showed,  moreover, 
that  this  oneness,  which  might  be  enjoyed  by 
all,  was  no  vague  abstraction  but  an  inner  re- 
ality and  that  the  Christ  of  inward  religious  ex- 
perience was  one  with  the  Christ  of  history. 
Once  published,  the  new  gospel  was  received 
as  the  "spiritual"  gospel  because  it  thus  set 
forth  the  innermost  significance  of  the  life  and 
work  of  Jesus.  At  the  very  outset  it  stated  that 
doctrine  of  pre-existence  upon  which  Paul  had 
touched  but  which  was  unknown  to  the  SjTiop- 
tists.  Indeed,  the  whole  life  of  Jesus,  includ- 
ing his  death  and  resurrection,  was  presented 

194 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  t>HILOSOPHY 

as  "a  manifestation  of  the  glory  of  the  incar- 
nate Logos"  illuminating  the  world  and  "recon- 
ciling" men  to  God.  In  other  words,  the  gospel- 
story  was  no  longer  that  of  a  man  who,  from 
time  to  time  in  his  earthly  career,  "manifested 
the  glory,"  or  who,  ultimately,  in  his  resurrec- 
tion, had  been  glorified ;  the  transfiguration  was 
continuous,  extending  throughout  the  eternity 
of  his  being.  Such,  in  brief,  was  the  sublime 
purpose  and  achievement  of  the  author  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  And,  as  Professor  Scott  has 
suggested,  the  achievement  saved  Christianity 
from  the  double  danger  of  evaporating  into  a 
dry  and  fruitless  philosophy,  or  petrifying  into 
a  mere  tradition.  Conscious  of  man's  perpetual 
need  of  at-one-ment  with  what  is  infinite  and 
eternal  our  author  so  presented  the  person  of 
Jesus  that  men  could  feel  they  had  seen  God 
when  they  had  seen  Jesus. 

The  chief  obstacle  to  acceptance  of  the  gos- 
pel among  Greeks  was  the  Synoptic  portraiture 
of  Jesus  as  a  member  of  the  Jewish  race,  more 
despised  than  any  other.  In  the  Fourth  Gospel 
that  obstacle  is  overcome.  For,  there,  Jesus  is 
presented  as  not  originally  Jewish,  or  even  hu- 
man, but  as  born  without  an  earthly  mother  and 
as  antedating  the  universe — in  a  word,  the  in- 

195 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

carnate  Logos.  Nay,  we  may  go  further  in 
our  estimate  of  this  achievement  and  see  in  our 
author's  stroke  of  genius  not  only  mastery  of 
the  main  difficulty  in  making  Christianity  ac- 
ceptable to  the  Greek-speaking  world,  but  also 
the  basis  for  a  philosophy  of  that  religion.  For, 
by  conceiving  Jesus  as  the  eternal  Word  of 
God  he  forthwith  presented  him  to  readers  in 
a  threefold  capacity.  First  of  all  as  the  agent  of 
God  in  the  creating  of  the  world  (the  Logos 
long  known  to  educated  Greeks  through  the 
speculation  of  their  own  philosophers),  then  as 
the  Manifestor  of  God,  or  the  incarnate  Logos, 
the  Logos  having  now  entered  on  a  second 
function,  viz. :  of  revealing  God  (whom  no  man 
at  any  time  had  seen)  and  thereupon  returning 
to  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  only,  however,  to 
enter  on  a  third  mission  as  a  permanent  Influ- 
ence, the  "Paraclete"  or  "Comforter"  who 
would  abide  with  believers  as  a  constant  source 
of  inspiration  and  joy.  Nor  does  this  exhaust 
the  total  purpose  which  the  Fourth  Gospel  ful- 
filled. The  Christology  of  the  Synoptics  and 
that  of  the  Pauline  epistles  had  not  yet  been 
harmonized.  The  Christian  world  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  second  century  was  still  con- 
fronted with  two  unamalgamated  conceptions 

196 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

of  the  person  of  Jesus — the  one  representing 
him  as  the  faithful  Servant  of  God,  glorified 
and  exalted  at  His  right  hand,  delivered  by 
Him  out  of  the  power  of  death  and  Sheol  in 
order  that  when  His  chosen  people  have  re- 
pented of  their  wickedness  in  rejecting  His  Son 
the  latter  would  return  again  as  the  Christ  to 
restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel  and  reign  forever 
in  the  transfigured  Jerusalem;  the  other,  rep- 
resenting this  same  glorified  Jesus  as  identical 
with  the  pre-existent  spirit:  the  former,  por- 
trayed in  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  the  latter,  in 
the  Pauline  epistles :  the  one,  Hebraic  in  origin 
and  essence,  propagated  on  Hebrew  soil  where 
the  Messianic  hope  had  evolved  to  the  point  of 
looking  for  the  Christ  to  come  down  on  the 
clouds  from  heaven ;  the  other,  generated  in  the 
atmosphere  of  Greek  concepts,  of  "redeemer- 
gods"  that  descended  to  earth,  battled  for  the 
true  and  good  and  then  ascended  to  the  em- 
pyrean whence  they  came.  The  two  Christol- 
ogies  could  not  thus  stand  in  seeming  opposi- 
tion or  at  least  in  unrelated  juxta-position. 
They  must  needs  be  harmonized,  amalgamated, 
synthesized,  if  Christianity  were  to  take  a  per- 
manent hold  on  the  Gentile  world.  Now  the 
achieving  of  this  necessary  coalition  of  the  two 

14  ]97 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

dissociated  Christologies  was  the  work  of  this 
talented  Hellenist.  For,  the  Fourth  Gospel 
tells  the  story  of  Jesus  in  such  a  way  that  Gen- 
tile thinkers  could  see  in  it  a  due  recognition  of 
these  two  familiar  doctrines  of  pre-existence 
and  incarnation,  in  which,  as  Pauline  Chris- 
tians, they  had  been  trained,  but  of  which  the 
Synoptic  writers  had  no  knowledge  at  all.  Tak- 
ing his  stand  on  Paul's  theory  of  the  pre-exist- 
ent  Christ,  and  on  the  ancient  Greek  idea  of 
the  Logos,  he  told  the  Synoptic  story  in  terms 
of  these  conceptions,  and  so  satisfied  the  para- 
mount needs  of  the  Gentile  Christian  world. 
It  is,  then,  to  the  doctrine  of  the  pre-existent 
spirit,  or  Logos,  that  we  must  look  ultimately 
for  the  link  that  bound  the  Christology  of  the 
Synoptics  with  that  of  the  apostle  Paul  and 
made  possible  a  life  of  Jesus  intelligible  and 
acceptable  to  the  Hellenic  mind. 

What  is  this  Logos  in  terms  of  which  the 
Synoptic  story  was  retold,  and  whence  was  it 
derived?  Our  author  took  it  over  directly  from 
Philo,  a  Greek  Jew  who  flourished  in  Alexan- 
dria about  the  year  20  A.  D.,  and  is  best  known 
by  his  attempted  harmonizing  of  Old  Testament 
theology  with  Greek  philosophy.  He,  in  turn, 
was  indebted  to  the  Stoics  for  his  introduction 

198 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

to  the  Logos,  as  were  they  to  Heraclitus,  with 
whom  the  conception  seems  to  have  originated 
in  the  sixth  century  before  our  era.  He  held 
that  the  world  is  pervaded  by  an  eternal  Rea- 
son, or  Logos,  which  possesses  its  own  inner 
energy  and  gets  outward  concrete  expression 
in  Nature  and  man,  a  power  analogous  to  the 
reasoning  power  in  man.  This  idea  was  taken 
over  by  the  Stoics  to  solve  their  problem  of 
the  chasm  that  separates  God  and  the  world — 
the  Logos  being  the  Reason  of  the  invisible  God 
projected,  as  it  were,  for  the  purpose  of  creat- 
ing the  cosmos  and  maintaining  it  as  an  orderly 
system.  From  the  Stoics  the  doctrine  was 
taken  over  by  Philo  and  fitted  into  his  Graeco- 
Judaic  cosmology.  Much  of  Hebrew  literature 
dating  from  the  Greek  period  shows  the  influ- 
ence of  this  Greek  speculation,  so  that  for  Philo 
the  harmonizing  process  was  considerably  sim- 
plified. Thus,  for  example,  we  read  in  the 
thirty-third  Psalm  that  the  heavens  were  es- 
tablished by  "the  Word"^  (the  logos  or  agent 
of  creation),  plainly  illustrating  a  tendency  to 
isolate  the  uttered  word  as  God's  instrument  of 
activity.  Similarly  in  the  Apocryphal  books, 
the  "Wisdom  of  Solomon"  and  "Ecclesiasticus," 

»Ps.  33:6. 

199 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

we  find  this  thought  expressed  with  still  closer 
approximation  to  the  Greek  conception.  "Wis- 
dom is  a  creative  power,  a  pure  influence  pro- 
ceeding from  the  glory  of  the  Almighty."^  Ben 
Sirach  describes  the  word  as  "the  first-bom  of 
God,  the  active  agent  of  the  creation."^  From 
such  Biblical  and  inter-Biblical  passages  the 
transition  to  Philo's  doctrine  of  the  Logos  was 
as  direct  as  from  the  writings  of  the  Stoics  by 
which  he  had  been  so  deeply  impressed.  But 
in  order  that  we  may  see  the  immediate  relation 
of  the  Logos  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  what  we 
read  in  Philo's  work,  it  will  be  necessary  briefly 
to  summarize  his  doctrine — ^made  attractively 
accessible  to  English  readers  in  Professor 
James  Drummond's  "Philo  Judaeus."  Accord- 
ing to  Philo,  God  in  His  essence  is  invisible  and 
unknowable,  dwelling  in  remote,  inaccessible 
heights,  enveloped  in  absolute  holiness.  As 
such  He  could  not  come  in  contact  with  "vile 
matter."  To  have  personally  created  the  world 
would  have  been  an  act  wholly  incompatible 
with  His  absolute  purity  and  exalted  station. 
Accordingly  there  proceeded  from  Him  a  force, 
or  power,  through  which  the  actual  work  of 

1  Wisd.  of  Sol.  7  and  8. 
« Ecclus.  24:23  et  seq. 

200 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

creating  the  world  was  achieved  and  which  thus 
served  as  a  connecting  link  between  God  and 
the  visible  world.  To  this  emanation  the  name 
"Logos"  was  given,  an  abstract  principle,  or 
force,  endowed  with  independent  existence,  de- 
tached from  the  world  which  it  created,  yet  sub- 
ordinate to  God.  For  He,  indeed,  was  the  Crea- 
tor, though  creation  was  mediated  through 
the  Logos,  working  in  accordance  with  the  Di- 
vine Will.  Philo,  it  must  be  remembered,  was 
a  Jew,  and  as  such  he  could  not  surrender  the 
monotheism  in  which  he  had  been  reared.  Thus 
the  original  Greek  conception  of  an  immanent 
Reason  was  Hebraized  by  Philo  and  given  a 
semi-independent  existence  under  the  supreme 
God.  By  thus  combining  his  Hebrew  monothe- 
ism with  the  Stoic  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  Philo 
was  enabled  to  explain  how  the  world  was  cre- 
ated and  maintained  as  an  intelligible  order. 
Philo  personified  the  Logos  but  never  did  he 
identify  it  with  any  human  personality — the 
probable  reason  being  that,  for  him,  no  one 
ever  existed  worthy  to  be  thus  identified  with 
the  Logos.  Had  Philo  been  born  twenty  years 
after  Jesus  instead  of  twenty  years  before  him, 
the  step  from  personification  of  the  Logos  to 
hypostatization  (the  identifying  of  it  with  an 

201 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

historic  personality)  might  have  been  effected 
by  the  philosopher.  It  remained  for  the  author 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  take  this  further  step. 
And  it  was  made  possible  for  him  because  side 
by  side  with  increasing  speculation  on  the  na- 
ture and  function  of  the  Logos  there  went  a 
continuous  process  of  idealization  of  the  person 
of  Jesus.  It  began  while  he  was  still  on  earth 
in  the  attributing  to  him  of  the  Messianic  title 
and  the  expectation  that  he  would  fulfil  the 
office  of  Messiah  and  "redeem  Israel."  The 
process  was  advanced  by  Paul's  conception  of 
"the  glorified  Son  of  God,"  who  "from  the  be- 
ginning dwelt  with  the  Father,"  and  who  "laid 
aside  his  glory"  that  he  might  become  the  Sav- 
ior of  the  world.  Thus  this  parallel  develop- 
ment of  speculation  and  idealization  prepared 
the  way  for  that  identification  of  the  Logos 
with  Jesus  which  we  first  meet  with  in  explicit 
form  in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Here  it  is  shown 
that  whereas  the  first  phase  or  mode  of  being 
of  the  Logos  was  that  of  Divine  Agent,  creating 
the  visible  world,  this  emanation  from  God  had 
now  entered  upon  a  second  stage  of  historic  en- 
ergy by  becoming  flesh  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
who  was  thus  the  accessible,  visible  manifesta- 
tion of  the  invisible  inaccessible  God.    And  it 

202 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

is  further  shown  that  when  this  term  of  mani- 
festation shall  have  expired,  the  Logos-Jesus 
will  return  to  his  original  home  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father  and  enter  on  a  third  stage  of  his- 
toric energy  as  "the  Spirit  of  Truth,  the  Com- 
forter," an  abiding  Presence  in  the  hearts  of  all 
believers  who  will  receive  him  and  his  Father 
and  be  one  with  both.  Thus  the  Logos  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  is  not  an  abstract  principle,  as 
with  the  Stoics  and  Philo,  but  a  person ;  not  a 
cosmic  agent  merely,  but  a  spiritual  Redeemer. 
All  that  had  been  predicated  of  the  Greek 
Logos  could  be  also  predicated  of  Jesus,  for  he 
was  not  only  the  Jesus  of  history  but  also  the 
preexistent  being,  a  second  God,^  the  supreme 
manifestation  of  God,  "sent  from  the  Father" 
as  speech  goes  forth  from  a  man  and  reveals 
his  inner  character.  Between  Philo  and  the 
author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  came  Paul,  whose 
epistles  bear  witness  to  his  having  had  a  pro- 
nounced logos-doctrine  (though  he  never  used 
the  term  Logos)  conceiving  of  Jesus  as  an  in- 
termediary being,  higher  than  all  angels  yet 
lower  than  God.  He  declared  Jesus  to  be  the 
"second  Adam,"  and,  as  such,  ascribed  to  him 

>  Note  the  author's  careful  distinction  in  the  first  verse  of 
his  gospel  between  a  God  and  the  God. 

203 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

pre-existence  in  heaven  as  the  ideal  man  and 
assigned  him  a  part  in  the  work  of  creation 
and  in  the  history  of  the  world.  Between  Philo 
and  our  author  came  also  the  writers  of  the 
epistles  to  the  Hebrews  and  the  Colossians,  a 
connecting  link  between  Paul's  conception  and 
what  we  find  in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  For,  in 
these  epistles  Jesus  is  described  as  "the  re- 
flection of  the  Deity,  the  maker  and  sustainer 
of  all  that  is  in  heaven  and  on  earth."  From 
this  it  was  but  a  single  step  to  the  statement 
that  the  Eternal  Word  appeared  bodily  in  the 
person  of  Jesus.  And  this  is  the  starting-point 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  Here,  and  here  only,  do 
we  find  a  complete  identification  of  Jesus  with 
the  Logos  of  Philo.  What  our  author  did  was 
to  let  the  divine  Logos  "play  the  part  of  soul 
to  a  human  body  and  use  the  living  mask 
through  the  scenes  of  an  earthly  drama;  and, 
thus  interpreted,  the  story  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
at  once  became  a  Theophany."  ^ 

Given,  then,  the  idea  entertained  by  Heracli- 
tus — the  first  among  Greek  philosophers  to  con- 
ceive of  Reason,  or  Logos,  as  a  Divine  agent — 
given  the  further  development  of  his  theory  as 
worked  out  by  the  Stoics  and  elaborated  by 

'  Martineau  Op.,  cit,  p.  427. 
204 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY' 

Philo,  given  also  the  witness  of  passages  in  Old 
Testament  books,  written  during  and  after  the 
Greek  period,  together  with  what  we  read  in 
the  Apocrypha,  and  the  materials  are  at  hand 
for  tracing  the  genealogy  of  that  hypostasis 
of  the  Logos  that  characterizes  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel. Its  author  availed  himself  of  the  legacy 
of  speculation  in  Greek  and  Hebrew  circles  in 
order  that  he  might  make  intelligible  to  minds 
familiar  with  that  idea  the  life  and  work  of 
Jesus  interpreted  in  terms  of  the  Logos.  He 
presents  the  Sonship  of  Jesus  as  a  metaphysi- 
cal conception  drawn  from  Greek  philosophy. 
God  existed  from  all  eternity  in  fellowship  with 
another  being,  one  with  Him  indeed,  though  less 
than  He  and  therefore  called  his  Son.  Then,  to 
this  Philonian  position  our  author  adds  the 
hypostatizing  statement  that  this  second  God  of 
Greek  speculation  was  manifested  in  Jesus  the 
Christ,  the  opening  verses  (or  prologue)  of  his 
gospel  striking  its  keynote:  "In  the  beginning 
was  the  Logos  and  the  Logos  was  a  God,"  and  it 
"became  flesh"  in  order  that  "God  whom  no  man 
had  seen  at  any  time  might  be  made  manifest." 
Not  only  does  the  Fourth  Gospel  root  itself 
in  a  Greek  idea,  but  it  also  unfolds  with  all  the 
stateliness,  dignity  and  order  of  a  Greek  tra- 

205 


THE   DAWN   OF    CHRISTIANITY 

gedy.  And  here  I  but  amplify  wliat  Professor 
Scott  has  suggested  in  his  illuminating  book. 
First,  in  a  simple,  brief  prologue  of  eight- 
een verses,  corresponding  to  the  "Choragus"  of 
a  Greek  drama,  we  are  made  acquainted  with 
the  fundamental  conception  which  is  essential 
to  the  understanding  and  appreciation  of  that 
which  is  to  follow — the  Logos  and  its  incarna- 
tion. After  this  preparatory  prologue  the  hero 
of  the  drama,  the  incarnate  Logos,  passes  be- 
fore us  in  a  succession  of  cardinal  situations, 
the  whole  comprised  in  a  series  of  five  acts. 
In  the  first  act  (chapter  1-4)  the  Logos-Jesus 
enters  as  the  Light-bringer,  illuminating  the 
world,  and  all  men  seeming  to  welcome  the  Light 
and  to  respond  to  it.  In  the  second  act  (chap- 
ters 5  and  6)  we  see  signs  of  hostility  to  the 
Light,  scepticism  spreads  and  men  are  found 
taking  sides  for  and  against  the  Light.  The 
Logos-Jesus  has  enemies  as  well  as  friends. 
In  the  third  act  (chapters  7-12)  the  enemies 
are  seen  to  be  greatly  in  the  majority,  people 
generally  have  settled  down  into  an  attitude  of 
pronounced  antagonism.  Only  a  small  group 
rally  round  the  hero  and  they  are  drawn  more 
and  more  closely  to  him  as  the  drama  proceeds. 
Then  follows  the  fourth,  the  most  touching  and 

206 


MESSAGE   IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY) 

deeply  impressive  act  (chapters  13-17),  in 
which  the  hero  is  left  alone  with  these  bosom- 
friends  and  reveals  to  them,  in  the  solemn  still- 
ness of  the  supper-room,  his  inmost  spiritual 
convictions. 

Meanwhile  the  hatred  of  his  enemies  reaches 
a  climax  and  we  have  a  fifth  and  final  act  (chap- 
ters 18-20).  Here  we  see  the  Light  over- 
whelmed, for  a  moment,  by  the  powers  of  dark- 
ness and  then  rising  triumphant  and  victorious. 
And  by  as  much  as  this  theological  drama  pre- 
sents the  personality  of  Jesus  as  an  ever-pres- 
ent Influence  that  may  be  universally  felt  and 
the  work  of  Jesus  as  that  of  the  Light-bringer 
and  Giver  of  the  more  abundant  life,  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  however  untrustworthy  as  a  source  of 
information  concerning  the  historical  man  of 
Nazareth,  yet  supplements  the  Synoptic  record 
in  a  very  real  and  indispensable  way,  revealing 
the  essential  character  and  inmost  spirit  of 
Jesus  to  a  degree  not  attained  by  the  earlier 
writers.  Especially  do  they  fall  short  of  por- 
traying the  idealism  that  was  in  Jesus,  and  it 
is  brought  to  light  only  by  reading  back  into 
the  Synoptic  record  what  the  author  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  by  reason  of  his  philosophically- 
grounded  interpretation  of  the  person  of  Jesus, 

207 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

could  show  forth.  But,  now,  to  come  still  closer 
to  our  subject,  let  us  see  how  our  author  suc- 
ceeded in  other  phases  of  his  task.  For  illus- 
tration let  us  take,  first,  the  three  titles  by 
which  Jesus  is  designated  in  the  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels— Messiah,  Son  of  Man,  Son  of  God;  and 
then  let  us  take  the  three  cardinal  doctrines 
of  the  primitive  Christian  message  preserved 
for  us  in  those  records;  the  Messiahship  of 
Jesus,  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
the  "Parousia,"  or  expected  return  of  Jesus.  Let 
us  see  how  our  author  reinterpreted  these  titles 
and  doctrines,  stripping  them  of  their  particu- 
lar Jewish  implications,  identifying  them  with 
his  conception  of  the  Logos,  and  so  making  them 
intelligible  to  the  readers  for  whom  his  work 
was  intended. 

The  title  "Messiah"  connected  Jesus  in  popu- 
lar Jewish  thought  with  the  great  historic  hope 
of  Israel.  He,  it  was  felt,  would  be  the  inaugu- 
rator  of  that  heavenly  kingdom  which  the 
prophets  had  predicted,  and  in  which  the  pros- 
perity, peace  and  independence  of  David's  day 
would  once  more  bless  the  earth.  Paul,  it  will  be 
remembered,  did  not  transcend  this  expectation.* 
That  Jesus  shared  the  popular  expectation  of  a 

» I.  Cor.  15:51-53;  I.  Thess.  4:16  et  passim. 
208 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

coming  kingdom  of  God  has  already  been  shown 
by  illustrative  quotations  from  the  Synoptics. 
Whether  he  believed  that  he  himself  would  in- 
augurate the  new  order  of  society  may  be  ques- 
tioned. But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he 
transcended  both  the  popular  conception  of  the 
kingdom  and  of  the  Messiahship.  His  prime 
interest  in  the  kingdom  was  ethical  rather  than 
political.  For  him  it  meant  an  outward  world 
in  which  Righteousness  reigned  and  an  in- 
ward personal  state  on  which  entrance  to  it 
depended.  Hence  he  could  say,  "Seek  first  the 
kingdom  of  God,"  and  also,  "The  kingdom  is 
within  you" — moral  fitness  for  the  privilege  of 
admission  being  the  prerequisite  of  member- 
ship. Thus  to  the  mind  of  Jesus  the  terms 
"Kingdom  of  God"  and  "Messiah"  had  a  double 
significance  and  because  of  his  constant  empha- 
sis on  its  ethical  import  he  subjected  himself 
to  inevitable  misunderstanding.  Having  as- 
sumed the  role  of  prophet  and  teacher,  having 
taken  on  himself  the  mission  of  preparing  peo- 
ple for  entrance  into  the  coming  kingdom,  he 
had  no  alternative,  when  pressed,  but  to  tolerate 
the  historic  title,  albeit  he  had  transcended  the 
popular  political  interpretation  of  it  and  con- 
centrated his  thought  on  its  spiritual  implica- 

209 


THE   DAWN    OF    CHRISTIANITY 

tions.  No  wonder  then  that  his  sense  of  its  in- 
adequacy as  a  descriptive  title  caused  him  to 
request  his  disciples  not  to  apply  the  title  to 
him  and  that,  until  his  departure  for  Jerusalem, 
he  invariably  used  the  substitute  "Son  of  Man," 
taken  from  the  book  of  Daniel  and  signifying 
one  endowed  with  a  divine  calling,  a  title  which 
therefore  corresponded  more  closely  than  did 
"Messiah"  to  the  conception  he  entertained  of 
himself — one  divinely  commissioned  to  prepare 
the  way  for  a  higher  order  of  personal  living, 
to  reveal  the  Divine  Will  and  bring  the  human 
will  into  accord  with  that  higher  Will. 

As  for  the  title  "Son  of  God,"  Jesus  is  no- 
where reported  as  having  made  use  of  it  in 
describing  himself.  Twenty-seven  times  does 
the  title  occur  in  the  gospels  but  always  on  the 
lips  of  others  as  indicative  of  the  absolute  self- 
surrender,  the  fervent  trust,  the  profound  sense 
of  oneness  with  God  that  were  in  the  heart  of 
Jesus.  Now  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  all  three  of 
these  Jewish  titles  are  de-Hebraized  and  used 
interchangeably  as  equally  descriptive  of  the 
incarnate  Logos.  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  not 
(as  in  one  or  another  of  the  Synoptics)  because 
of  his  Davidic  descent,  or  his  Bethlehem  birth, 
or  because  the  main  incidents  of  his  life  were 

210 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

the  fulfilment  of  Hebrew  prophecy,  but  because 
of  his  divine  origin,  he  having  come  from  God 
and  been  sent  forth  by  Him  to  serve,  first,  as 
the  creator-Logos,  then  as  the  Logos-incarnate 
and  finally  as  the  "Paraclete,"  or  Comforter. 

Jesus  was  the  "Son  of  Man"  not,  as  in 
the  Synoptics,  because  of  the  sublime  role  he 
was  to  fulfil  as  God's  representative  on  earth 
in  ushering  in  the  new  kingdom,  but  because 
he  was  the  Logos  made  flesh  "manifesting  him- 
self under  the  conditions  of  human  life."  Again, 
Jesus  was  the  "Son  of  God"  not,  as  in  the 
Synoptics,  because  of  his  deep-seated  sense  of 
close  personal  relationship  to  God,  but  because 
his  Sonship  was  of  a  unique  kind,  he  having 
been  '^begotten  of  the  Father."  And  when  he 
became  flesh  he  still  retained  his  Sonship,  his 
earthly  life,  being  literally  one  with  the  preced- 
ing heavenly  life.  He  was  the  Logos  and  as 
such  he  was  one  with  God  and  by  communicat- 
ing to  others  his  own  life  he  enabled  them  to 
share  with  him  the  life  of  God.  Moreover,  be- 
ing the  Logos,  essentially  one  with  Deity,  Jesus 
was  more  than  the  latest  of  the  Hebrew  proph- 
ets. He  was  the  complete  and  absolute  revealer 
of  God,  whereas  they  who  had  preceded  him 
did  but  reflect,  not  manifest,  the  eternal  Light. 

211 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

As  with  these  titles  so  with  the  cardinal  doc- 
trines— they,  too,  are  interpreted  by  our  author 
in  terms  of  the  Logos.  The  Messiahship  of 
Jesus  meant,  not  the  role  of  a  vicegerent  of 
God  coming  on  the  clouds  to  establish  the  ex- 
pected kingdom,  but  the  role  of  an  emanation 
from  God,  entering  upon  the  second  of  his  his- 
toric functions,  the  manifesting  to  men  of  the 
invisible  God.  He  was  indeed  "the  anointed 
of  God,"  consecrated  before  the  world  began 
to  the  fulfilment  of  the  Divine  Will,  first  in 
respect  to  the  creation  of  the  cosmos,  then,  in 
regard  to  manifesting  God  to  man^  and  finally 
in  the  securing  of  permanent  fellowship  and  in- 
spiration for  all  who  "believe  on  His  name." 

So,  again,  in  dealing  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
kingdom,  our  author  broke  with  Hebrew  tra- 
dition and  worked  out  a  new  rendering  intelli- 
gible to  his  Greek  readers.  For  the  miraculous 
transformation  of  society  promised  by  the  Old 
Testament  prophets  and  preached  in  turn  by 
John,  Jesus,  the  disciples  and  Paul,  our  author 
substituted  the  promise  of  "eternal  life"  by  the 
Messiah-Logos,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Life-giver; 
— eternal  life,  not  as  something  to  be  acquired, 
or  earned,  but  as  an  outright  gift  from  God 
through  the  Logos.     The  kingdom  of  God  is 

212 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

thus  a  society  composed  of  those  who  have  been 
"reborn"  through  their  "belief"  in  the  Logos, 
and  have  received  in  consequence  the  gift  of 
"eternal  life,"  the  Logos  having  been  made 
"flesh"  for  the  express  purpose  of  serving  as 
the  life-giver.  In  other  words,  our  author  had 
no  interest  in  the  Jewish  eschatology  which  an- 
ticipated the  advent  of  a  kingdom  of  God  on 
earth.  Rather  was  his  concern  with  a  state  of 
life  realizable  at  once  and  attainable  only  from 
God  through  the  Logos-Jesus,  the  appointed 
communicator  of  the  life  which  is  in  him  and  in 
God  and  different  in  kind  from  that  known  to 
man,  something  apart,  like  the  "higher  reason" 
of  Aristotelean  philosophy.^  The  life  that  is 
in  God  and  therefore  also  in  the  Logos  differs 
from  that  of  man's  experience,  and  by  no  ethical 
self-discipline  can  he  attain  it.  It  can  only  be 
imparted  and  only  after  the  occurrence  of  a 
radical  change  in  his  nature.  And  this,  like  the 
life  itself,  can  be  attained  only  through  belief 
in  the  incarnate  Logos  as  the  divinely  ordained 
life-giver.  And  by  as  much  as  the  Jesus  of  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  held  that  the  Kingdom  has 
already  come  where  men  are  doing  the  Divine 
will,   our   author's   conception  of   eternal   life 

» Nic.  Eth.  10:6. 

15  213 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

as  a  spiritual  condition  immediately  realizable, 
supplements  and  brings  into  relief  the  essential 
thought  of  the  historic  Jesus  as  presented  in 
the  biographies  of  the  first  three  evangelists. 
Passing  now  to  the  "Parousia"  we  note  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel  a  reinterpretation  of  its  Synop- 
tic content  corresponding  to  what  we  have 
already  observed  in  the  case  of  the  other  two 
cardinal  doctrines  of  the  primitive  message. 
Clearly  our  author  has  no  interest  in  the  po- 
litico-social expectations  of  the  first  century  in 
Palestine.  Or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  he 
has  transcended  them,  and  therefore  also  the 
disappointment  of  his  contemporaries  over  the 
non-fulfilment  of  those  expectations.  From  the 
standpoint  of  his  approach  to  the  Synoptic 
record  he  felt  that  the  disappointment  of  those 
who  "trusted  it  was  he"  (Jesus)  who  "would 
redeem  Israel"  was  due  to  their  misunderstand- 
ing of  his  promise.  They  had  only  themselves 
to  blame  for  the  gloom  of  unfulfilled  hope  that 
enveloped  them.  Our  author  held  that  the  real 
Parousia,  the  actual  coming  of  Jesus,  has 
already  occurred.  It  occurred  when,  after  his 
death,  he  returned  to  heaven  and  resumed  his 
original  place  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father.  For, 
then  it  was  that,  freed  from  the  limitations  at- 

214 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

tending  his  life  on  earth,  he  could  dwell  with 
believers  as  a  permanent  Influence,  Inspiration, 
Comforter.  As  an  inward  Presence,  abiding 
forever  with  those  who  accepted  him  as  the 
Logos,  Jesus  had  already  returned.  Such  was 
the  revised  doctrine  of  the  Parousia — an  inter- 
pretation calculated  to  restore  hope  and  cour- 
age to  the  hearts  of  a  despondent  people  vainly- 
looking  into  the  sky  for  their  expected  "Lord" 
and  growing  sceptical  as  to  the  foundation  of 
their  religion.  Obviously,  in  the  light  of  this 
conception  of  the  promised  return  of  Jesus,  his 
resurrection  could  have  had  no  such  signifi- 
cance for  our  author  as  it  had  for  the  apostle 
Paul.  On  the  contrary,  instead  of  being  the 
central,  pivotal  doctrine  of  his  religious  system, 
the  resurrection  was  but  an  incident  that 
marked  the  transition  from  his  function  as  the 
incarnate  Logos,  manifested  on  the  earth,  to 
the  subsequent  broader  and  permanent  function 
of  the  Comforter,  assumed  immediately  on  his 
return  to  heaven. 

Closely  connected  with  the  Jewish  expecta- 
tion of  Jesus'  return  upon  the  clouds  as  Mes- 
siah was  the  belief  that  he  would  then  act  as 
the  final  Judge  of  mankind,  pronouncing  his 
doom  upon  the  sinful  world  and  taking  unto 

215 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

himself  the  elect.  This  judiciary  function  the 
author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  interprets  so  as 
to  fit  it  into  his  theory  of  the  Logos.  That  is 
to  say,  he  presents  Jesus  in  the  capacity  of  a 
Judge  while  he  is  still  on  earth  as  the  incarnate 
Logos.  As  a  magnet  sifts  out  iron  filings  in 
a  dish  of  sand,  so  He  sifted  from  out  "the  dark- 
ness" the  "children  of  light."  As  he  moved 
about  among  men,  simply  manifesting  himself, 
they  were  either  attracted  or  repelled.  They 
had  opportunity  to  accept  or  to  reject  him  and 
according  as  they  chose  they,  in  truth,  judged 
themselves.  To  quote  again  from  the  sug- 
gestive book  of  Professor  Scott,  on  the  Fourth 
Gospel:  "The  Fourth  Evangelist  accepts  the 
doctrine  of  a  Messianic  judgment  which  he 
found  current  in  the  Church  and  gives  it  a 
new  development  in  line  with  his  character- 
istic ideas.  The  judgment  is  taken  out  of  the 
future  and  carried  back  into  the  actual  life  of 
Christ.  While  he  lived  on  earth  he  was  already 
endowed  with  all  the  prerogatives  of  the  Son  of 
God ;  and  one  chief  purpose  of  his  coming  was 
to  judge  men  in  virtue  of  that  sovereign  power 
which  the  Father  had  intrusted  to  his  hands. 
He  does  not  pass  formal  judgment  on  men;  it 
is  enough  that  he  has  revealed  himself   and 

216 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

given  them  the  opportunity  of  declaring  their 
attitude  toward  him.  This  is  the  condemnation 
that  light  is  come  into  the  world  but  men  'loved 
the  darkness  rather  than  the  light.'  The  judg- 
ment is,  on  his  part,  involuntary,  for  his  whole 
desire  is  to  draw  men  unto  him  and  save 
them.  The  Light  has  come  into  the  world 
and,  according  to  their  nature,  men  are  drawn 
to  it  or  repelled ;  and  according  as  they  are  for 
or  against  the  Light  they  are  judged,  revealing 
themselves  as  either  'children  of  light  or  chil- 
dren of  darkness.' "  ^ 

Thus  by  the  adoption  of  the  Logos  idea  and 
making  it  serve  as  the  basis  for  a  reinterpreta- 
tion  of  the  Synoptic  story,  Christianity  was 
wholly  loosed  from  the  Jewish  provincialism 
in  which  Paul  had  left  it  by  his  retention  of  the 
Messianic  expectation  and  lifted  to  the  level 
of  a  universal  religion.  Jesus  was  now  the 
Logos  who  had  dwelt  with  God  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  world.  He  was  "the  true  Light  that 
lighteth  every  man  bom  into  the  world."  He 
was,  in  short,  the  absolute  revelation  of  God 
to  man.  Small  wonder,  then,  that  the  Fourth 
Gospel  has  been  called  "the  spiritual  gospel." 
Rightly  has  it  been  so  styled  because  rooted  in 

1  Scott,  Op.  cit.  pp.  215-216. 

2ir 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

a  universal  spiritual  need,  as  perpetual  as  it  is 
deep ;  the  need,  namely,  of  vital  relation  to  what 
is  infinite  and  ultimate  and  finding  spiritual  rest 
in  the  thought  of  that  relation.  In  no  other 
gospel  do  we  find  the  sense  of  subordination 
to  God  and  of  oneness  with  God  so  synthesized 
as  they  are  here,  the  sense  of  perfect  spiritual 
freedom  in  complete  utter  obedience  and  self- 
surrender  to  the  highest — a  synthesis  uniquely 
symbolized  and  personalized  by  the  Logos- 
Jesus  who  could  say:  "I  of  myself  can  do 
nothing,"  and,  "I  and  my  Father  are  one." 
This,  indeed,  is  the  language  of  mysticism,  but 
that  language,  like  money,  is  a  medium  of  ex- 
change ;  a  spiritual  currency  it  is,  negotiable  all 
over  the  world. 

Summary 

Looking  back  over  the  ground  we  have  cov- 
ered in  this  course  of  lectures,  it  must  be  clear 
that,  however  unrelated  to  each  other  the  suc- 
cessive topics  may  have  appeared,  they  yet 
stand  in  a  closely  connected  and  even  chrono- 
logical relation. 

After  an  introductory  inquiry  into  the  origin 
of  the  New  Testament   and  the  trustworthiness 

218 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 

of  its  constituent  books — our  main  sources  of 
information — we  raised  the  question,  What 
happened  in  Jerusalem  after  the  crucifixion  of 
Jesus?  We  saw  how  the  despondent,  despair- 
ing disciples  regained  their  courage,  came  to 
themselves  and  forthwith  entered  on  the  task 
of  preaching  to  the  Jews  of  the  city  their  firmly- 
fixed  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  from 
the  dead,  his  ascension  to  heaven  and  his  speedy 
return  to  usher  in  the  expected  Kingdom.  We 
noted  the  leading  characteristics  of  the  life  of 
this  "primitive  community"  at  Jerusalem  and 
the  remarkable  success  attending  their  mission- 
ary enterprise  as  preachers  of  a  "Messianism" 
which  distinguished  them  from  the  rest  of  their 
fellow-Jews.  We  saw,  next,  how  the  converted 
Paul,  stationed  at  Antioch,  brought  on  a  crisis 
in  this  religious  situation  at  Jerusalem,  the  is- 
sue of  which  was  a  further  advance  on  ortho- 
dox Judaism  than  that  represented  by  the 
apostles.  We  saw  how  Paul  took  the  one  step 
still  necessary  to  the  formation  of  Christianity, 
the  "Messianism"  of  the  apostles  being  but  a 
link  that  historically  connected  Judaism  with 
Christianity,  while  Paul's  insistence  on  the  suf- 
ficiency of  Jesus'  sacrifice  as  the  sole  source 
of  salvation  marked  the  hreah  with  Judaism 

219 


THE   DAWN   OF   CHRISTIANITY 

that  had  been  but  partially  achieved  by  the 
Jerusalem  apostles. 

No  sooner  had  the  new  religion  been  planted 
in  the  fields  of  Paul's  missionary  labors  than  its 
persistence  became  jeopardized  by  non-fulfil- 
ment of  the  Messianic  expectation,  so  fervently 
cherished  and  preached  by  the  apostle  to  the 
Gentiles.  In  vain  did  the  Christians  of  the  first 
century  wait  for  the  coming  of  their  Lord.  And 
when  in  the  first  decades  of  the  second  century 
the  great  hope  seemed  as  far  from  fulfilment  as 
ever,  scepticism  grew  into  positive  disbelief, 
and  the  very  foundations  of  Christianity  threat- 
ened to  give  way.  What  was  to  be  done  regard- 
ing practices  and  beliefs  intended  for  a  society 
that  was  supposed  to  last  but  a  little  while  and 
be  replaced  by  "the  Kingdom  of  God"?  Have 
these  lost  their  validity  now  that  this  society 
shows  no  signs  of  dissolution,  and  if  so,  what 
becomes  of  the  religion  which  taught  those  be- 
liefs and  practices?  Such  was  the  practical 
problem  confronting  Christians  toward  the 
middle  of  the  second  century.  We  have  seen 
how  the  genius  of  Hennas  exhibited  in  "The 
Shepherd,"  solved  that  problem.  But  the  new 
religion,  established  in  Gentile  communities 
was  as  yet  without  any  intelligible  account  of 

220 


MESSAGE  IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY, 

Jesus  of  Nazareth,  its  ultimate  founder.  The 
biographies  that  had  been  published  were  writ- 
ten for  Jewish  readers  and  were  replete  with 
Jewish  beliefs  and  modes  of  thought  that 
could  make  no  appeal  to  the  Gentile  world. 
What,  therefore,  was  urgently  needed  to  round 
out  Christianity  as  a  religious  system  was  a 
life  of  Jesus  written  with  special  regard  to 
Greek-speaking  and  Greek-thinking  people. 

This,  we  saw,  was  the  task  undertaken  by 
the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  He  retold 
the  Synoptic  story  in  terms  familiar  to  Gentile 
minds  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  long- 
established  doctrine  of  the  Logos,  at  the  same 
time  bringing  to  light  the  deeper  meaning  of 
Jesus*  personality  and  message,  thereby  ful- 
filling the  work  done  by  the  Synoptists.  By 
thus  interpreting  the  gospel  story  and  the  prim- 
itive Christian  message  in  modes  of  thought 
which  the  Geatile  world  could  urderstand,  the 
author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  supplemented  the 
Christian  system  of  theology  &s  presented  by 
the  apostle  Paul  with  that  account  of  Jesus 
which  was  the  sole  requvsite  remaining  to  com- 
plete Christianity  as  a  religious  system  and  to 
permit  its  making  a  universal  appeal. 


a) 


0035518286 

BRITTLE  DO  NOT 
PHOTOCOPY 


%.- 


m 

m 


